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MY CHINESE DAYS 




A RELIC OF ANTIQUITY 



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MY 
CHINESE 

Dy\YS 

GULIELMA 
F.ALSOP 



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LfTTLE,13R0WN, ANO COMPA>JY 




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Copyright, igi8, 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 



All rights reserved 



SEP *26. '1918 



Nortoootj ^tcsB 

Set ap and electrotyped by J. S. Gushing Co.. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 

Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston. Mass., U.S.A. 

■SGi.A5()J914 



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PREFACE 

Reaching China in a moment of great dramatic 
importance, in fact on the very day that the Peace 
Delegation arrived in Shanghai, in 191 1, I found 
from the very first all the events and happenings in 
my daily life and in the lives of those about me 
charged with a vital significance. 

In the story of Doctor Wilhelmina I have en- 
deavored to give the impressions and readjustments 
that take place in a missionary doctor in present- 
day China. Some of the incidents, in especial the 
rescue of the slave girls at Kaung Wan, are bor- 
rowed from the heroism of acquaintances, but the 
great majority happened under my very eyes. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Mandarin's Bride i 

II The Coolie's Wife , 13 

III Flying Stones 21 

IV The Girl from Tunis . . . , .30 
V Glowing Needles . . . . . . 40 

VI A Romance of the East 51 

VII The Business of Life 57 

VIII The Song of the Coolies .... 68 

IX The Warm Grave 79 

X The Slave Refuge at Kaung Wan . .92 

XI The Walled City 109 

XII The Fishing Birds 120 

XIII The Brigand's Knife 132 

XIV The Wives of Li 145 

XV The House of the Dead . . . . .167 

XVI The Sanctuary of the Well . . . .185 

XVII Where There's a Will! 200 

XVIII The Seeking Hand 226 

XIX The Flaming Wind 249 

XX The River of Silence 258 



LIST OF PLATES 



A Relic of Antiquity Frontispiece ■ 

The Creek, near Rubicon Road, Shanghai . facing page 28 

At the Trinket Stall 

A Sedan Chair and Bearers 

The Temple 

A Watergate, Sungkiang .... 
The Temple Courtyard. A Ceremonial 
The Bird Fanciers 



82 




" " 112' 




" 116 




" " 122 


^ 


" 172 
" " 222 





d 



MY CHINESE DAYS 



THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE 

I HAD been in Shanghai one week and was com- 
fortably settled in my study and bedroom but 
my mode of life was still strange to me and I 
was invariably startled by the appearance of a hand- 
some, black-haired, blue-gowned man called "the 
boy", whenever I rang for a maid. The "Ladies' 
House", as the woman's dormitory was called, was 
directly opposite St. Margaret's Hospital, where I 
was to work for the rest of my appointed lifetime. 

St. Margaret's is a Mission Hospital for Chinese 
women and children. The nurses, too, are Chinese. 
In their uniforms of light blue trousers and jackets 
and white aprons, I thought them very neat and 
jaunty. They are quick and agile, and move with 
more freedom than our many-skirted women. None 
of them have bound feet. 

About six o'clock, Doctor Donnellon, the physician 
in charge, was called out to the country on an urgent 
case. As she gathered up her wraps, she said to me, 
"I am sorry to leave you so soon, but I hope you 
will have a quiet night. If you need anything, 



3 MY CHINESE DAYS 

remember that A-doo is the best nurse. She speaks 
a little English. You had better sleep in my room 
in order to hear the night bell." 

"When will you be back?" I asked, following her 
to the door. 

"I can't say. Some time to-morrow," she an- 
swered. 

She stepped into her ricksha, and the wild-haired 
coolie burst into a run and whisked her out of sight 
around the wall of the compound. 

I went back and finished my dinner with the 
other women — two evangelists and three teachers. 
I felt a slight tingling in my veins, as a swimmer 
does on the brink of a plunge into water of an un- 
guessable temperature. The desultory talk of the 
table flowed around me unnoticed; I was wonder- 
ing what the coming night would bring forth, so 
much of the true physician's attitude had I ab- 
sorbed in the three years since my graduation. 
Everything happens at night. 

The hospital was quiet when I made the rounds 
at nine o'clock. The outlines of the patients were 
mere formless lumps under their "bi-deus" of 
padded cotton. I opened windows right and left, 
pulled the covers from the children's noses, and 
returned to the house. Overhead, the stars were 
brilliant and brightly opalescent. The upcurling 
eaves of the Chinese houses huddling around the 
compound cut sharply against the steely-blue of 
the sky. The broad palm leaves clashed softly 
against each other like cymbals. 

The feeling of the night grew upon me, as I 



THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE 3 

crouched on a low stool over the fire. One by 
one, the other women went to bed. The Chinese 
servants ceased their chatter. From the street I 
heard the click of the watchman's castanets as he 
struck them together on his rounds. Once, a sudden 
burst of sound leapt out upon the quiet night, like 
the wild upflaring of a hidden fire, and died away 
in faint reverberations. 

The gaudy yellow flames that had raced between 
the irregular lumps of shining black coal changed 
to dim, flickering wraiths of blue, hovering over 
crimson embers. I forgot my anticipations in 
dreams : I fancied the tiny, twisting flames were 
the imprisoned ghosts of past ages, freed by the 
devastating fire. 

Suddenly the night bell, a huge, metallic alarm 
hung over Doctor Donnellon's bed, rang sharply. 
Half bewildered by its vicious clangor, I started up 
and threw open the shutters. The two night nurses, 
in outer garments of fur, and five men, stood on 
the steps. The bright starlight shone on their 
pallid faces and dark, inscrutable eyes. 

"What do you want?" I called in Chinese. 

To my relief, a voice answered in pidgin English. 

"Come quick. Makee baby." 

"All right," I answered, almost disappointed 
that nothing more than an ordinary baby case 
awaited me. I dressed hurriedly and stole out of 
the sleeping house. The group on the steps was 
talking excitedly. 

Merely as a formality, I asked, "Is the woman 
in the hospital?" 



4 MY CHINESE DAYS 

One of the men stepped forward. He was 
promiscuously dressed in a foreign felt hat, tan 
leather shoes, and a blue, brocaded, satin gown lined 
with lamb's wool. 

"Woman no can come," he explained. "She 
too muchee sick. Two days, wantchee burn one 
baby, no can burn." 

"Burn a baby!" I cried, with a start of horror, 
remembering all the weird tales of Chinese cruelty 
I had heard within the past week. 

But in a rapid, voluble mixture of pidgin and 
Chinese, the man explained what he wanted. My 
heart sank, for I had no relish for the inky black 
alleys of Shanghai at midnight. 

"More better, bring woman hospital-side," I 
urged. 

"No can do," the man retorted. "She too 
muchee scare. She no savvey hospital. You 
come." 

He laid a quick hand upon my arm and peered 
into my face. I liked his eyes and his earnestness, 
and some of my fear evaporated ; I had done my 
"out" practice work in the polyglot slums of New 
York and Philadelphia, and knew the night and its 
calls. Yet I protested. Hospital results are so 
much superior. 

"Cost very much outside," I answered. "I 
charge you twenty-five taels outside. Hospital side, 
only 30 dong-ban a day." 

"Never mind," he answered proudly, "Can do. 
You come. Woman already eatee too muchee 
bitterness." 



THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE S 

Turning to the men behind him, he explained our 
conversation in quick idiomatic jerks. Each man 
picked up a corner of his satin robe to reach the 
money pocket in his belt. Between them, in the 
brilliant starlight, they counted out to me thirty- 
four silver, Mexican dollars, the equivalent of the 
twenty-five taels I had charged. 

"Now come," the spokesman said. 

I acquiesced, and sent for A-doo, the best nurse, 
to accompany me. The surgical bag with its 
sterile instruments, chloroform, and dressings, was 
ready. Not five minutes later we left the compound, 
A-doo and I in the center of the string of rickshas. 

It was about one o'clock in the morning, and the 
ghostly radiance of a rising moon gave the pointed 
shadows a palpable blackness. In truly medieval 
fashion, the Chinese houses were closely shuttered 
and barred. Once or twice we passed a tailor's 
shop lit with smoky oil lamps, where twenty or 
thirty men were bending at work over Singer sewing 
machines. Out from the tangle of Chinese quarters 
surrounding the hospital, we burst upon Nanking 
Road, a glaring gash of modernity cutting across the 
shrouded, ancient city. We left the international 
settlement behind us, ran across some bare, ill- 
smelling fields where the wind nipped the blood, 
and plunged into "French town." Here again we 
soon lost ourselves in an aimless twisting back and 
forth through narrow alleys. 

Since leaving St. Margaret's no one had spoken. 
The two men before me bobbed along like specters in 
an interminable nightmare. I looked back and saw 



6 MY CHINESE DAYS 

A-doo's pale face and her kind, Intelligent eyes. It 
reassured me. I had reconciled myself to riding on 
for the rest of my life, in a cold and shivering dark- 
ness, to I knew not where, when we suddenly stopped. 
The shafts of the ricksha were tilted down, and I was 
precipitated from my seat. In a huddled throng, 
we moved to the entrance of a low Chinese house. 
Several men were seated in the room that opened 
from the street, and I had a blurred impression of 
smoke-blackened walls, and solemn, sedate faces 
pierced with long, gurgling pipes. A-doo and I, 
following the spokesman, mounted the ladder-like 
stairs, each step but as broad as the palm of a man's 
hand. At the head of the stairs we were shown into 
a small room lit by one candle. One bed, four- 
posted and canopied, as are all the Chinese beds in 
Shanghai, occupied most of the room, leaving only a 
narrow crack between its dirty bulk and a small 
shelf -like table against the wall. There was no 
window, and, of course, no water. Three women 
lay on the bed. 

Then began my initiation into obstetrical work in 
China. A-doo was a great help. She divined my 
wants by the instinct of a long experience. She 
was the buffer between me and the impenetrable 
wall of Orientalism around me. Eventually we were 
ready. A-doo gave the chloroform, and I began my 
work. At the last moment, to prevent Interruption, 
I had shut and barricaded the door. In this small 
closet, there was only the Chinese woman, her 
mother-in-law, A-doo, and myself. There was no 
air, the candle flickered maddeningly, and the sweet 



THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE ' 7 

insidious fumes of the chloroform expanded in the 
close atmosphere. 

It was a long, hard case. At intervals, my con- 
sciousness grew alive to the crowded, silent, ominous 
life about me. I recalled an old hag that had stared 
at me from the door beyond ; I felt acutely the 
lives of the hostile people of the house pressing upon 
me. 

"Suppose the mother died? What if the child 
died?" I thought dully. 

From the room beyond, a low, fitful sound fell 
on my ears, a sound as of the sudden moan of a 
strange wind around the corners of a deserted house. 
As I listened, the sound grew articulate, and un- 
mistakable. It was a woman moaning. 

My attention to this sound, so insidious and 
insistent, was sharply snapped by the first cry of 
the baby. The child yelled in a veritable paroxysm 
of rage at the misfortune of its sordid birth. As the 
crying of the infant in the close room rose trium- 
phantly, there was an utter silence in the house, as 
if each inmate had held his breath for just that 
sound. The baby stopped yelling and lapsed into 
sobbing breaths. The house seemed to relax, and 
settle back again into the ways and thoughts of 
ordinary living. I imagined that each of those 
impassive faces took a long, deep, satisfied pull at 
the poisoned smoke that gurgled up through long, 
bamboo-stemmed pipes. 

Out of this sudden calm and relief burst a wild 
shriek, repeated again and again in an increasing 
agony of intensity. 



8 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"Oh! My love! You are killing me." The 
voice broke into pitiful sobbing. 

"Oh, God! Oh, God!" over and over again it 
moaned, in such a helpless fury of petition that my 
blood curdled. 

A-doo was already washing the baby. It was a 
cunning little thing, a creamy pink color, with black 
eyes and soft, downy, black hair. The mother was 
lying insensible, still half dazed by the anesthetic, 
and slumberous with the relief from pain. 

While I stood irresolute, a brisk knock came at 
the door, and an imperious voice called. 

" Is there a doctor in there ? " 

"Yes," I answered. "I'm coming." 

I quickly unbarred the door and opened it. A 
crowd of Chinese men and women pushed past me 
into the narrow room, but I hardly noticed them. 
My eyes were fastened on the tall, blond white 
man who faced me, who started violently when I 
appeared. 

"It's a woman," he muttered, and half turned 
away. 

I had heard that remark before and had chastened 
my spirit to the acceptance of my body ; but the 
privilege of helping I would not be denied. 

"I am a physician," I urged. "Do let me help 
her." 

He turned back and looked at me queerly. In 
that moment, as often before, I wished I were tall 
and broad and imposing. 

"You're only a girl," he said. "You can't help." 

By his expression, I knew he was wavering. The 



THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE 9 

sound of renewed moaning in the next room decided 
me. I slipped past him and entered. 

In great contrast to the squalor I had left, the 
sumptuousness and magnificence of the apartment 
startled me. Pausing a moment on the threshold, 
my eyes swept the brocaded walls, the rug-strewn 
floor, the quaintly carved Chinese furniture of red- 
wood and teak, and fastened themselves on a bed 
in the far corner. It was a beautiful bed of redwood, 
with headboard and footboard inlaid with ancient 
blue and white tiles. The posts were draped with 
crimson curtains. The room was softly but bril- 
liantly lit by innumerable candles stuck on all 
available surfaces. Their sharp, bright, waving 
flames gave the room a strange significance of things 
unseen. 

I crossed swiftly to the bed. A young Chinese 
girl was sitting on it, propped up against crimson 
cushions. In health she must have been extremely 
beautiful, with a soft, voluptuous, creamy beauty, 
but now her face was blanched with horror, and her 
features distorted with pain. Her eyes hurt me. 
They looked past me at the white, golden-haired man 
with the amazed, bewildered reproach of a dog that 
is struck by its master. 

Instinctively my fingers closed over the young 
girl's wrist, while I scanned her countenance. 
From the corner of her mouth a dead-white, leprous 
streak trailed off across her cheek. Her breath 
came in irregular jerks and the same, low moan 
escaped her lips. Her pulse barely fluttered beneath 
my fingers. With sudden conviction, I leaned close 



lo MY CHINESE DAYS 

and smelt her breath. I caught a full whiff of 
the dangerous sweetness of carbolic acid. 

I turned upon the white man in horror. 

"Did you do this?" I cried. 

The man looked at me, a flashing, blue glance, 
and on to the girl on the bed without replying. 

"She will die in horrible agonies," I exclaimed. 

"I know," he said in a queer, quiet voice that 
made me look at him again and notice how young he 
was. "I know," he repeated, "but you said you 
would help." 

Looking at him, my scruples died within me. I 
knew antidotes were useless ; too much time had 
elapsed since the swallowing of the poison. 

I ran back to the other room for my hypodermic 
case. The mother was awake. Every one was 
happy because the baby was a boy ; they beamed on 
me. 

I returned to the girl, and after giving the hypo- 
dermic of morphine, sat on the edge of the bed to 
watch its effect. Soon the pitiful moaning ceased, 
and the face of the young girl smoothed itself into 
all the beauty of her youth. Its soft, oval contour 
held a subtle charm. The languid flicker of her 
eyelids revealed her luminous dark eyes. She 
smiled at me, and putting her hand to her neck, 
she drew off a finely carved jade figure hung on a 
thin gold chain. 

"Thank you. It hurts no more," she said softly. 

Then her attention lapsed from me entirely. 

The golden-haired man was kneeling by her bed, 
covering her hand with kisses. 



THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE ii 

"Forgive me, May-ling," he murmured. 

With her last strength, the girl lifted her hand to 
touch his pale, gold hair. I heard her reply. It 
and what the man answered have gone on reverberat- 
ing through my mind. 

"I understand," she said. "So we had arranged 
it. Love always kills something." 

She closed her eyes. Again in the crowded house 
a great stillness reigned, not the stillness of 
expectancy, but that of an end. 

I stood at the window and waited, for what I 
hardly knew, but I only knew that I could not 
leave. I wanted to understand. Outside, a dim 
dawn drew its curtain of light over the peaked 
roofs of the city. 

The man began to speak to me quietly. 

"You are young," he said, "perhaps too young to 
understand. Yet I want to justify our act in your 
eyes, for I cannot bear that any shadow should 
rest upon our love." 

So far he had spoken calmly. Now he hurried 
on as if fearful of being stopped by a growing excite- 
ment. 

"I met her in the interior, up river, in the hills. 
She was married at twelve to a wealthy Mandarin, 
who sent her to England to a boarding school for 
four years. There the soul that has slept for 
centuries in the Chinese race was wakened and fed. 
The future spread itself out for May-ling, as for 
any other maiden, filled with dreams of a prince 
and a great love. Then the Mandarin, her husband, 
brought her back and shut her up in his yamen." 



12 MY CHINESE DAYS 

I suppose I was looking at him stupidly, for he 
suddenly exclaimed vehemently. 

"She felt it as you would feel it — the stifling of 
her brain, the turning back of her soul, the slavish 
ownership of her body. Then we met. Oh ! I 
know how unusual it is ! But her husband was so 
proud of her foreign learning and English ways that 
she was allowed to come to a small dinner. One 
week later we escaped together. We crept down 
the Yangtse in a common, brown-sailed junk, and 
we laughed when we saw the swift launch of the 
Mandarin steam past us. We were happy, as you 
have no conception of happiness." 

The man paused and almost stopped. 

"Oh, it doesn't matter how it happened," he 
continued. " Last night the Mandarin found us. I 
promised May-ling she should never fall into his 
hands alive." 

He drew himself up regally beside the bed on which 
the lifeless girl lay. A half smiling tenderness was 
on his face. 

"Love is the great adventure," he said softly. 

A-doo came for me and we started back to the 
hospital, in my hands the carved jade talisman, the 
bringer of love and death, and in my heart the 
memory of his words echoing : 

"Love is the great adventure!" 



II 

THE COOLIE'S WIFE 

FOR a long time I could not tell the nurses 
apart. Each one seemed a black-haired, 
blue-gowned counterpart of the next, but 
after the night the Mandarin's bride died, I knew 
A-doo. Gradually, one by one, faces grew signifi- 
cant ; May-li, with a round, smiling countenance ; 
San-mae, taller and usually worried : Tsung-pau, of 
the agile legs : and lastly, Ah-tsi. The first day 
that I taught the English class I noticed her. She 
was tall and slender, with a straight-boned nose and 
pale, clearly marked lips. The nurses all wore the 
regular hat of Chinese women, a band of black satin 
or brocade, narrow across the forehead and curved 
out to cover the ears. With this hat, the pale oval 
of Ah-tsi's face was sharply outlined. She wore 
earrings, two loops of irregular pearls set in deep 
blue enamel. In class, and even at her work, she 
was inattentive and distrait, yet I could not bring 
myself to scold her because of an inexplicable quality 
in her smile. 

One evening after I had made rounds, I went as 
usual to inspect the nurses' quarters and count 
heads for the night. At once I noticed an air of 



14 MY CHINESE DAYS 

subdued excitement. Ah-tsi was missing. I went 
to A-doo about it. 

" Do you know where Ah-tsi has gone ? " I asked. 

A-doo shook her head in scared silence. 

Tsung-pau volunteered in her quick, broken Eng- 
lish : "Evening rice time, go out. Blue satin 
trousers wear." 

"Was she alone?" I probed. 

" Go alonee. Maybe, by-um-bly meet he," Tsung- 
pau answered. 

Further than that I could elicit no information. The 
nurses, in their blue trousers and jackets, looked like 
young boys excited over a secret plot. I left word that 
Ah-tsi should report to me as soon as she returned. 

I walked back slowly to the house. Each night 
in the short walk from the hospital, I felt plunged 
anew into the midst of China. The fantastic, up- 
curling eaves of the crowded houses that shut in our 
compound like a wall always reminded me that I was 
in the midst of an alien race that lived by traditions, 
trailed down the years from antiquity. That even- 
ing I paid no attention to the menacing rows of 
Chinese houses, as my thoughts were occupied with 
Ah-tsi. There were no stars. The night was black 
and shrouded with fog. 

"Everything quiet?" asked Doctor Donnellon, as 
I sat down in a chair by the fire. 

"Ah-tsi is out," I answered laconically. 

"That accounts for Kwung-ling's behavior," 
Doctor Donnellon exclaimed. 

Kwung-ling is the upstairs boy who carries the 
bath water, and scrubs the floors and makes the 



THE COOLIE'S WIFE 15 

fires. He is cross-eyed and timid ; moreover, he is 
the husband of Ah-tsi. 

"What has he been doing?" I asked. 

"It's not what he has done, but what he has left 
undone," Doctor Donnellon repHed. " Not a bucket 
of bath water has he carried up. I've rung for him, 
but he is not on the premises. Mio-kung (the head 
boy) says he left at seven o'clock." 

"Ah-tsi left at five," I said. "Perhaps he went 
after her. T wonder what's up!" 

" A-doo, in a moment of expansiveness, said Ah-tsi 
had a lover," answered Doctor Donnellon. "He is a 
man from her own village, Wusih, whom she knew 
before she married Kwung-ling." 

"I thought such things didn't happen in China!" 
I cried in amazement. 

"Everything happens in China, especially in 
Shanghai, where the East and West have met," 
replied Doctor Donnellon. 

She picked up the poker and began to thrust 
ruminatively at the bed of coals. 

"Since the Revolution," she continued, "danger 
to women runs like wildfire. The old restraints are 
gone, and no barricade of character has been built 
up behind the demolished strongholds. The women 
of the coolie class have always had more or less 
freedom." 

j "It's a real love story!" I exclaimed, with a 
prospective old-maid's interest. "Ah-tsi seems far 
above Kwung-ling. He is such a timid, shrinking 
sort of a man that I don't wonder she doesn't_love 
him." 



i6 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Doctor Donnellon looked at me queerly. An 
intense melancholy lay in her expression. 

"Love, as we know it, probably doesn't enter 
into consideration," she said slowly. "Ah-tsi is 
tempted away by the mere physical attraction of 
the bigger man." 

*'0h! Y'ou've seen him. have you?" I asked 
eagerly. 

"Yes, several times." Doctor Donnellon replied. 
**He is the Raymonds' cook." 

I easily recalled the man — tall, imposing, arrayed 
in a long cut- velvet garment, still arrogantly swinging 
a thick queue to his knees. Mentally. I placed the 
two men side by side, and I wondered when bodily 
qualities would cease to be supreme. 

"One of the patients in the prisoner's ward escaped 
this afternoon," said Doctor Donnellon. "An old 
woman, about sixt\-, wTapped herself in her cotton- 
padded quilt and dropped from the second-story- 
window. I found the comfort folded neath' by 
the steps. The gatekeeper was ha\4ng one of his 
periodical naps. I suppose, when she went by." 

"How did she dare!" I exclaimed. "She was a 
miserable old hag, and would have been much better 
ofT in the hospital." 

"Y'ou've not learnt the value of freedom." Doctor 
Donnellon said. 

I stole a glance at her face. I wondered why 
ever>' one seemed to think I knew nothing of life, 
or love, or freedom. I wasn't so young, after all. 
In fact, a week ago I had passed my t\vent>^-3eventh 
birthday. 



THE COOLIE'S WIFE 17 

As if she were able to read my thoughts, Doctor 
Donnellon said: "Having heard about facts isn't 
knowing them." 

Miss Reilley burst in with barely a knock. 

"Oh! Doctor Wilhelmina!" she exclaimed, "Miss 
Carter has such a bad headache. She asked me to 
see if you would make her an eggnog." 

"Certainly," I said, rising. "I'm sorry she has 
another of her attacks." 

To reach the kitchen and the servants' quarters, I 
had to cross an unroofed alley which divided them 
from the house. The fog had grown denser and 
touched my cheeks like unseen fingers. The night 
was made for tragedy, but in the kitchen all was 
cheerful and lively. The four regular menservants, 
plus two "makee learns", the ricksha coolies, and 
three or four relatives were seated close together 
around an eating table, busily engaged in shoveling 
rice into their mouths. Their method of eating 
fascinated me. Each man held his bowl at his lips, 
as we would a cup of tea, opened his mouth to the 
fullest capacity, and, with a pair of chopsticks, 
deftly poked in as much as his mouth would hold. 
Between each mouthful, the men put down their 
bowls and conversed. 

As I stood watching the scene, Kwung-ling entered 
by the opposite door and sat down with the other 
men. I looked at him with a newly awakened 
interest, trying to make his proportions fit those of 
a hero of the play. Between his gulps of rice, he 
glanced over his shoulder from time to time, towards 
the door by which he had entered. Before I had 



i8 MY CHINESE DAYS 

time to move, a figure emerged from the darkness 
beyond the doorway and jauntily strutted into the 
room. 

I recognized the Raymonds' cook. He began to 
speak in a torrent of sibilant words, parading about 
and swinging his limber pigtail from side to side. His 
arrival was greeted ^\'ith utter silence. Mio-kung 
pulled down the comers of his mouth in a contemp- 
tuous smile and went on shoveling in rice by the 
bowlful. 

No one had noticed me. I was in the shadow of 
the doorway. Looking up quickly, I caught sight 
of a woman's figure hovering outside. 

In a flash the prett>', trivial scene was rent by the 
lightning of tragedy. Without any warning, Kwung- 
ling whirled upon his stool, caught up the cars'ing 
knife, and cut his rival's throat. He wiped the 
blade off on a flap of his long coat, and sat down again 
at the table to finish his rice. His face showed no 
sign of emotion or excitement, merely a slight 
satisfaction. 

The other servants leaped up, chattering in a shrill 
tumult. Only Kwung-ling remained at the table, 
complacently eating his rice. I sprang forward in 
a vain endeavor to staunch the spurting blood. 

"Quick! Call Doctor Donnellon," I cried to 
Mio-kung. 

He hurried away. The other men were jabbering 
and gesticulating frantically. The man's blood 
gushed over my futile fingers in warm splashes. 

Out of the darkness beyond the door emerged 
the slim figure of Ah-tsi, dressed in pale-blue bro- 



THE COOLIE'S WIFE 19 

caded trousers and jacket to match. Her high 
standing collar was edged with soft white fur that 
lay against her creamy cheeks. Her delicate oval 
face was slightly tinged with pink. She walked in 
quickly, with a determined air, entirely mistress of 
herself. Casting one scornful glance at the fallen, 
gory man prone upon the floor, she walked up to 
Kwung-ling and touched his arm. At her touch, the 
man was electrified. He caught her hand, and 
together they ran out of the room. We never saw 
either of them again. 

All of our efforts to save the murdered man were 
useless. He bled to death in five minutes. Kwung- 
ling had severed neatly and completely both carotid 
arteries, and hacked open the windpipe. 

Doctor Donnellon telephoned the police court, and 
that was the end of the affair. The next morning a 
new coolie appeared with the bath water. Doctor 
Donnellon seemed quite undisturbed. 

"Don't you feel shivery about all those men in the 
kitchen since last night's murder?" I could not 
forbear asking her. 

"No," she said. " No Chinese servant, or, for that 
matter, no Chinese, would hurt a foreigner in the 
settlement." 

"What will happen to Ah-tsi?" I asked with 
curiosity. 

"Kwung-ling will either kill her or forgive her," 
Doctor Donnellon answered. 

"Forgive her!" I repeated, mystified. 

"Why not?" replied Doctor Donnellon. "His 
rival is dead, his supremacy reasserted." 



20 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"But what of the woman's feelings?" I insisted. 

Doctor Donnellon glanced at me and then away, 
out of the window, to the irregular piece of blue sky 
cut by the up-curling eaves of the Chinese houses. 

"Ah-tsi is probably satisfied," she answered. 

"And you mean that this is the end of the whole 
affair?" I exclaimed. "Aren't you going to do any- 
thing?" 

"Oh ! You are young," smiled Doctor Donnellon. 
"In a four-year medical course you ought to have 
learned more philosophy than to be upset over a 
murder and a betrayal. I have more faith in the 
body's power to resist microbes than in the soul's 
to withstand temptation." 

Doctor Donnellon got up and left the room. 
From the window, I saw her cross the compound 
and enter the hospital. I couldn't help wondering 
at her impassivity under this tragedy. She was 
neither agitated nor shocked, nor yet harshly 
critical of any of the trio. In my hot-headed 
youth, I felt the need of taking sides, of punishing 
the wrongdoers, and rewarding the righteous. In 
this case, all three, — Ah-tsi, K\\aing-llng, and the 
handsome cook, — seemed equally sinners. 

Suddenly, with a shock of surprise, I grasped the 
meaning of Doctor Donnellon's attitude. To her 
and to the Chinese, this tragedy was just ordinary 
living, and as such to be accepted, not criticized, 
the offenders to be helped, not punished. 

Ah-tsi's face, with Its soft beauty, came to my 
mind, and her lustrous brown eyes questioned me : 

"Who are you that condemns?" 



Ill 

FLYING STONES 

YOU will have to go alone, Doctor Wllhel- 
mina," said Doctor Donnellon. "A walk 
will do you good. I am too tired to come. 
Besides, I am expecting to be called out on that Sey- 
mour Road case at any moment." 

" I am sorry you can't come," I replied. " I hope 
you will have time for a little rest before you are 
called. Good-by." 

Wild horses could not have kept me Indoors that 
afternoon. We had had a week of fine weather that 
had brought out all the early fruit blossoms. In 
the gardens the plums and cherries were huge bou- 
quets of pink and white fragrance. I walked 
quickly along Hart Road, turned to the right, and 
struck out across the country. The fields, that a 
month ago had been barren and brown, were now 
a vivid green. Through the interlacing branches of 
the leafless trees, blue sky and floating white cloud 
puffs chased each other. A string of laden wheel- 
barrows, holding eight or nine women apiece, hands 
from the silk mills, passed me. Otherwise the road 
was empty. 

At Christmas Doctor Donnellon had given me a 
light, walnut-stained, bamboo cane. I was very 



aa MY CHINESE DAYS 

fond of it and always carried it on my solitary' walks, 
To-day I swung it back and forth jauntily, quite 
contented with my lot as a missionary^ doctor in 
China. In spite of their dirt and in spite of their 
language, I liked the Chinese. 

In half an hour I came to Soochow Creek and 
crossed it into the Chapei Native district. At first 
I did not realize that I was beyond the limits of the 
International Concession, though I was astounded at 
the squalor and poverty of the huts that bordered 
the road. They were merely low, square rooms, 
made of pieces of matting sewn together, entirely 
without windows or doors. If any one ^^•ished to 
enter, he pushed aside a loose mat and squirmed 
in. The children playing about were covered with 
scabs and ulcers, and the dogs were piebald with 
mange. I, would have turned back but that in the 
distance I saw the graceful, peaked roofs of a 
pagoda. 

A little urchin ran after me, grinning and calling 
*'Nga-kok n>T.mg" (foreign kingdom man). "Xga- 
kok nyung." As my custom was in the settlement, 
where all are friendly, I turned and smiled and waved 
my hand. This proceeding scared him half out of 
his wits. Screaming T\-ith fright, the child threw 
himself on the ground and pounded the earth with 
his hands and feet. Immediately a crowd collected 
about him, some soothing the child, some scowling 
at me. At his cr>' I had stopped to see if he were 
hurt, but finding that I was the cause of the trouble, 
I turned away and walked on. In a few moments I 
dismissed the matter from my thoughts. 



FLYING STONES 23 

The brilliant sun made the brass-tipped eaves 
of the pagoda glitter like jewels. 

I was walking forward eagerly when I heard the 
sound of running footsteps behind. Perhaps if I 
had not turned to look back it might have been all 
right, but instinctively I stopped and looked over 
my shoulder. I saw a handful of big boys and one 
yapping cur running along the road towards me. 
As I paused, a sudden shower of small stones fell 
about me. One hit my shoulder, and a faint 
stain of blood dyed my thin w^aist. 

At the touch of that hostile missile, a wild wrath 
boiled up within me. Missionaries are supposed to 
feel only righteous wrath. I am not sure about the 
adjective that should qualify my feeling, but the 
feeling itself I recognized. Very often I realize 
that I am not fit to be a missionary, and in such 
moments of humility I try to console myself with the 
shortcomings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. At 
that moment however I didn't stop to justify myself. 
I turned around and shook my cane at that group 
with an air of fiendish vindictiveness. 

They wheeled precipitously. The hindermost boy 
tripped over the dog, and the rest tumbled upon him. 
I couldn't help laughing, they were so easily dismayed. 

Again I set my eyes on the gleaming brass peaks 
of the pagoda and walked on. The sun was almost 
setting. As the Chinese say, "The sun falls down 
the hill of heaven." Long level rays shot over the 
flat earth and covered the mud huts and green fields 
with a veil of woven, golden gauze. A faint mist 
began to rise from the ground. 



24 MY CHINESE DAYS 

A second stone hit me full on the ankle. It stung 
like fury. Turning, I found that the number of 
my pursuers had doubled, and a few men hung on the 
fringe of the group. More stones fell about me, 
several hitting my head and shoulders. Shouting 
and beating the air with my trusty bamboo cane, I 
advanced towards my persecutors. Again, with 
delighted shrieks, they fled, and once more I set out 
for the sunlit pagoda. 

But my heart wasn't in it. I didn't care whether 
the brass gleamed like gold and the eaves slanted 
upwards. I didn't think that trailing pink clouds 
made a wonderful background for the century-old 
wood of the roof. I tensed all my faculties in the 
one act of listening. I tried to count the number of 
bare, padding feet scurrying after me. Was it 
six or twenty or one hundred? Now and again 
came harsh, taunting cries and the crisp chatter 
of flying, falling stones. They concentrated their 
efforts on my ankles. 

How I longed for a Sikh policeman in his handsome 
blue uniform and crimson turban ! I could have 
embraced him ! In fact, I would have embraced 
any foreigner whatsoever, even any respectable 
Chinaman ! 

I reflected on the number of missionaries stoned 
and burned yearly. Also I remembered that the 
Republic was but one year old and anti-foreign 
feeling still in existence. Fit, or not fit, I seemed 
to be chosen for a martyr's death. I wondered how 
St. Stephen felt ! I was mortally afraid. 

I began to run. I set my eyes on that gleaming 



FLYING STONES 25 

pagoda and ran for dear life, at first easily and swiftly. 
The pagoda came nearer by leaps and bounds. As 
my tormentors chased me, the flying stones ceased. 
Suddenly I found my knees were trembling. My 
throat was dry, and my breath came in great gasps. 
A cloud floated between the pagoda and my straining 
eyes. 

I stopped dead and faced about. Because of 
the pounding of the pulses in my ears, I could not 
hear the approach of the rabble, but through my 
tears I saw them magnified into the huge black hulk 
of an antediluvian monster. With the certainty 
of doom, my senses cleared, and I grew quite calm. 

Ahead of the nondescript horde ran a lithe youth 
about sixteen years old. Poised in his upraised 
arm I saw a large round stone. His still uncut 
queue flapped behind him. 

I did the only thing that remained to be done. I 
ran to meet him and broke my futile, vainglorious 
cane over his shoulder. Then my hands fell to my 
sides, and I awaited the next assault. 

It never came. The boy, at the snapping of my 
cane, laughed shrilly but broke off in mid-air. With 
terrified eyes he stared over my shoulder, then 
began to back off towards his companions. The 
group behind him halted, then turned and fled. 
The cur howled dismally. The boy gave a shriek, 
whirled around, and raced after his comrades. The 
large round stone dropped unheeded to the earth. 

I stood petrified. Aid had come, as it always does, 
at the last, unhoped-for moment. Who or how or 
what, I did not know, nor did it matter. I had 



26 MY CHINESE DAYS 

been saved. I felt the Lord had sent His Angels 
to beat the air with their unseen wings and strike 
terror into the hearts of the heathen. My knees 
began to shake, and I found it advisable to sit 
down by the roadside. 

"Are you hurt?" a man's voice behind me asked. 

"No," I gasped. With the assurance of safety 
and protection I began to cry. I don't at all re- 
member what the man said or did, but eventually I 
found myself stuttering out the details of what had 
happened. 

" I don't know how to thank you," I ended tritely. 

"Never mind that," he answered. "Do you 
still want to see the pagoda?" 

His question took my breath away. In my heart 
of hearts I considered myself quite unfit to walk, 
or take an interest in anything less spiritual than 
my saved life. He treated my escape in a very off- 
hand fashion. Well, if he wanted to, so could I. 

"Certainly," I answered in my most sprightly 
manner. "If it isn't too late." 

"Not at all," my rescuer replied. "The sunset 
view is especially fine from the top gallery. The 
custodian is a friend of mine. Shall I help you up ? " 

"I am entirely recovered, thank you," I said. 

Unaided I rose to my feet and once again set out 
towards the pagoda. I furtively dabbed my eyes 
and looked at the man beside me as often as I 
could without being observed. I saw his feet very 
plainly, neat, trim feet, shod in very stubby-toed 
American shoes. I also managed to see his ears. 
They were not red ; I was distinctly glad of that. 



FLYING STONES 27 

"How did you make the Chinamen turn tail so 
suddenly?" I asked. 

"This way," he replied, slipping his hand into 
his hip pocket and drawing Out a small shining 
pistol. " I merely pointed it at them. It was 
sufficient." 

" I can't begin to thank you," I stammered again. 

"Don't begin, for heaven's sake," he protested 
with a sound of merriment in his voice. "If I had 
not happened to come along, some one else would 
have. You acted as if you shared my philosophy. 
Help always does turn up at the last, despaired-of 
moment." 

"It's unpleasant, waiting for that last moment," 
I answered. "I expected to be stoned to death." 

"I thought you would be," the man replied 
soberly. "I saw you from the pagoda. When you 
began to run, I was terrified. You faced them 
splendidly at the end. You must have hit that 
fellow a pretty strong crack to break your cane at 
the first stroke." 

I began to laugh. "It was bamboo," I explained. 
He laughed aloud in amusement. 

We soon reached the gate of the enclosure sur- 
rounding the pagoda. It opened to the push. A 
fat, sleek Chinaman rose from a bench before the 
gate house and came towards us. My companion 
left me to speak to him. After a brief conversation 
he returned and led the way up flights of ex- 
tremely steep stairs. We emerged on the narrow 
gallery that was overhung by the topmost roof. A 
very low parapet of painted tiles ran along the edge, 



38 MY CHINESE DAYS 

and my companion and I leaned back against the 
inner wall and let our eyes sweep over the view 
before us. At the left lay Shanghai, with its foreign 
buildings and chimneys rising like spars above the 
floating, sealike mist that thickly covered the whole 
plain. The waves of the fog heaved and billowed, 
and were opalescent with sunlight. 

"A beautiful sight," said the stranger, "but 
deadly. Have you taken any quinine?" 

I smiled at the question. "I am a doctor," I 
replied. 

He started. "You, a doctor !" he exclaimed. "I 
can't believe it !" 

"Why not," I retorted with some heat. 

My fitness for medicine was a sore point with me. 
I boasted a purple seal from the New York Regents, 
one of the five awarded that spring among five 
thousand students. 

"I suppose I am too small !" I flung at him. 

"Perhaps," he answered vaguely, adding, "I 
only wonder you have had the leisure," making his 
meaning quite obvious by a quick glance from his 
eyes. 

"I don't like men in general," I answered his 
glance, "nor any one in particular," I hastened to 
add. 

He smiled as though suddenly pleased at some- 
thing. 

"Nor I women in general," he replied. "Only 
one thing draws me — life, in all its wide, strange 
forms. • For about five years now I've been traveling 
£ind w'atching. But, in my search, I have never 




THE CREEK, NEAR RUBICON ROAD, SHANGHAI 



FLYING STONES 29 

included sampling the sweets. One soul attracts 
another by infallible sympathies. I have waited 
for that." 

His eyes were upon me with an intentness of 
glance that held me silent. He was leaning against 
the low parapet to face me. The sun lit up one 
side of his face and hair with a clear light. 

"About a month ago," he continued, "I was in the 
Temple of the Red-lipped Idols in the Native City. 
The air was dim and fragrant with rising incense. I 
was staring overhead at the huge, carven monsters, 
then at the floor, at the kowtowing Chinese. 
Suddenly, through the fragrant, floating incense, I 
met a pair of eyes, — soft, intense, brown eyes, — 
that looked directly into mine. They were your 
eyes. Do you remember?" 

I nodded and stretched out my hands towards 
him. For half a minute we faced each other with 
clasped hands, then, for fear of what he might say 
next, I quickly ran down the stairs. At the gate an 
open victoria was waiting for us. The drive home 
passed like a mirage. I scarcely noticed the huts 
of flapping mats and the mangy children. At the 
steps of "The Ladies House" I hesitated a moment. 
The stranger, hat in hand, was standing waiting. 

"I don't know your name," I stammered, "but 
won't you call?" 



IV 

THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 

ABOUT seven o'clock in the evening I started 
out to meet the tender on which the new 
nurse for St. Margaret's was to arrive. She 
was to start the new training school for Chinese 
nurses. Her name was Miss Laurie, and she was a 
Bryn Mawr girl. So much and no more we knew. 
Doctor Donnellon and I had been speculating about 
her. Doctor Donnellon hoped she would have a good 
digestion, and I hoped she wouldn't be too good to 
live with. I had put a bunch of violets in an old 
brass bowl on the dressing table in her room and had 
lent her my window curtains freshly starched and 
rufHed. I didn't want her room to look too barren. 

Nanking Road was thronged with Chinese. Two 
new jeweler shops had been recently opened, and 
the entire fagades of the two buildings were covered 
with hundreds of colored electric lights in rosettes 
of rainbow silk ; and in the fantastic shapes of tigers 
and dragons and roosters. Opposite their blazing 
front the street was blocked with gaping admirers. 
The flare of the light was reflected against the sky 
in a luminous haze. 

Marching along by the curbing, in groups of twos 
and threes, followed at a respectful distance by their 



THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 31 

ever-watchful amahs, were the satin- trousered 
night slaves of the east, young girls with spots of 
scarlet on their eyelids and upper lips. At the 
debouchment of the cross roads, drab-colored groups 
clustered and peered enviously at the satin-clad 
girls that walked the road. Before the new Chinese 
theater advertising ideographs flashed in changing 
colors. In my mood of the moment China seemed 
quite progressive and up to date. 

At the jetty I found that the tender was expected 
in ten minutes. Standing at the end of the wharf, I 
scanned the harbor, an indistinct, blue-gray back- 
ground, against which the junks and launches moved 
as darker shadows punctuated with light. The 
black outline of a warship, pierced with innumerable, 
tiny yellow globes of light, loomed through the 
gloom. While I was watching her, a junk with a 
high curling poop and a tall oblong sail slipped 
between us. Close to the pier, within the radius of 
its light, rocked a dozen or so small rowboats. On 
each side of the prows were carved and painted eyes 
that made the boats look like sea dragons. 

A group of Europeans were waiting at one end of 
the jetty, and beyond them were Chinese, some in 
foreign cloth suits and some in native satins. I 
was struck by the barbaric gorgeousness of one tall, 
handsome young man. His queue was cut, and his 
hair had been allowed to grow thick and long over 
his forehead and neck. Instead of an appearance of 
femininity, this gave him a look of fierce, almost 
cruel strength. His short, sleeveless outer jacket 
was of plum-colored satin, and his long garment of 



32 MY CHINESE DAYS 

slate-blue satin lined with very white and very 
fleecy lambs' wool. A Frenchman with upturned 
moustaches and full beard joined them. His appear- 
ance was shabby and mediocre, and his stature 
stunted. In no way, except in the nameless flavor 
of race, could he compare with the splendid specimen 
of Chinese manhood before him. He was evidently a 
piece of driftwood whom life was treating badly, yet 
he thrust out his chest vain-gloriously and spoke in 
shrill, excited tones. 

" I tell you again and again, she vill gome. Regard 
me. Am I not her elder broder? Am I not head 
of my family? Have no fear. She gomes." 

The man's words were easily heard, and they 
aroused my curiosity. 

A series of harsh toots announced the arrival of 
the tender. The passengers were lined along the 
rail, and I scanned their faces eagerly in search of 
Miss Laurie. She was to wear an American flag 
pinned on her coat. In the twilight on the deck I 
could distinguish no separating badge, but as the 
passengers stepped gingerly down the gangplank, 
the familiar colors greeted me from the jacket of the 
third comer. Miss Laurie was tall and stately and 
young. As we shook hands, I saw that her eyes were 
blue and her hair gold. 

"She looks good," I said to myself. "It is 
fortunate she is blond. Blond holiness is so much 
less disagreeable than brunette holiness." 

"You must be nearly famished," I said to her. 
"Doctor Donnellon is waiting dinner. If you will 
point out your trunks to our boy, he will attend to 



THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 33 

bringing them up. What kind of a trip have you 
had? Was it frightfully hot in the Red Sea?" 

Miss Laurie had come out via Europe. 

"For twenty-four hours it was rather uncomfort- 
able," she answered, "but I didn't mind it much. 
The two typhoons we ran into on the way up from 
Canton were infinitely more unpleasant." She broke 
off abruptly to hurry after a vanishing trunk. 
After a short search for her belongings, we were 
ready to leave. 

"Just a moment more," said Miss Laurie. "I 
want to say good-by to a charming French girl 
that I met on the steamer, Ther^se Fleurir. I have 
been watching for her, but I have not seen her get 
off. She is coming out to be married. Her elder 
brother, whom she has not seen for years, has arranged 
it. Isn't it a hideous method? But she doesn't 
seem to mind ; on the contrary, she is elated at the 
prospect and looks upon it as a release. She lived 
in Tunis and had a position as a stenographer in 
the French Embassy." 

Miss Laurie hurried up the gangplank, leaving me 
plunged in dismay. It was painfully easy to fit 
together brother and sister and to fathom the trap 
that had been laid for the girl. I wondered if she 
would mind. You never can tell about "foreigners." 
The Chinamen were evidently rich. 

As I turned from again staring at the Chinese, Miss 
Laurie was descending the gangplank. Following 
her came a slight, shrinking figure dressed in subdued 
colors, save for two crimson plumes in her soft black 
hat. The girl was trying to hide behind Miss 



34 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Laurie. Miss Laurie beckoned to me and I hurried 
towards her. 

"May I bring Therese to the mission house for 
to-night?" she asked. "She is frightened and 
terrified at something she has seen." 

"Certainly," I answered. 

Miss Laurie stepped aside. For an instant the 
French girl hesitated. An arc light threw its glare 
over her, revealing a face both delicate and intelli- 
gent. In that instant's pause, the chance for es- 
cape unrecognized was lost. The shabby, bearded 
Frenchman leaped forward. 

"Mon Dieu ! C'est Therese," he fairly screamed. 

He waved his cane in the air and caught her by 
the arm, dragging her towards the group of China- 
men. 

"You see, you see," he cried, hopping about in 
wild satisfaction. "Behold, I write, she gome. 
See, is she not beautiful? White skin, like ze so 
rare snow, a straight nose, and small feet. Ah ! 
Zay vill not disgrace you, zose feet, nor ze feet of 
your shildren. May you have only men shildren ! 
To-night you shall be married. But first you must 
pay me ze sum you promised, the five hundred 
taels." 

The man's voice climbed higher and higher till 
he shrieked the last sentence. During his harangue 
the girl stood as if utterly dazed. At the end she 
lifted her eyes to sweep the circle of Oriental faces 
hemming her in. 

"Salute her," the brother urged, "Hke a gentle- 
man." 



THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 35 

The Frenchman gave the tall handsome youth a 
vigorous dig with his cane. The boy laughed aloud. 

"Like a foreigner I will salute her," he shouted 
triumphantly. 

Catching the French girl in his arms, he kissed her. 

The touch stung her to life. She wrenched herself 
free and rushed to the edge of the pier. I caught a 
glimpse of a white despairing face under the flame- 
colored plumes. Simultaneously Miss Laurie and I 
grasped her intention. Miss Laurie caught her in her 
strong arms. 

"Let me go," she stormed. "To die now is 
fitting. So it must be. A daughter of my race 
cannot marry a Chinaman." 

She struggled wildly, but Miss Laurie held her 
securely, and I heard her whispering insistently to 
the girl. I turned to the rabid brother. Like a 
vexed child, he was dancing up and down with mor- 
tification and anger. 

"Such an Insult! The Ingrate! Here, have I 
found a rich husband who is willing to marry her, 
marry her legally, I say, and the first moment she 
meets him, she insults him. Listen, Ther^se," he 
called, edging nearer the girl. "Remember your 
life of drudgery, no pleasure, no fine clothes, no 
jewels, no pastries. Consider it well. He will give 
you everything. Regard him. I say that he is 
rich." 

At this point the Chinese broke in stormily. 
From their conversation I gathered that the bride- 
groom's family had already paid down five hundred 
taels for the girl and that five hundred more were 



36 MY CHINESE DAYS 

to be handed over upon her arri\al. Fearing to 
lose both money and face, they were furious and 
insisted upon possession of the girl, 

I was at my writs' end. Whatever happened to- 
night would be irrevocable, either the Chinaman 
would get Therese, or we would rescue her. Save 
for a gang of coolies unloading cargo, we were alone 
on the jetty. I longed for a man, and, above all 
other men. for Edward Ste\'ens, my pagoda man. 
My wish was a prophecy. Looking up the road, I 
saw him walking briskly toward us. I ran to him 
and broke into breathless explanations. 

"You want to take the French girl with you 
to-night: is that it?" he asked. 

"Yes," I answered. "Arrange for to-night, now. 
To-morrow we can settle matters." 

Edward stood a moment scrutinizing the group 
of Chinese, then he selected the oldest man dressed 
in foreigTi clothes and addressed his remarks to him. 

" I understand that you wish to obtain in marriage 
for one of your family a foreign-born maiden and in 
all things to follow the foreign custom," he said 
courteously. 

Edward's clear, incisive words held their attention. 
The shabby brother, with his cane still poised in mid- 
air, stopped in the midst of a sentence. Even 
Therese checked her sobs to listen. 

"It is not according to 'Old Custom* to take the 
maiden to your house to-night. To-night she must 
lodge \\"ith her friends and to-morrow the bride- 
groom may seek her there. I will give you my 
address, and you can call in the morning." 



THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 37 

Edward took out his visiting card and handed it 
to the old man. 

The Frenchman expostulated. "Do not listen to 
him ; it is not so." 

Edward turned on him with subdued anger. 
"Shut up !" he whispered fiercely. "I am managing 
this affair now." 

The fellow cringed. He disgusted me, but he 
looked as if he had been half fed for years, and I 
was sorry for him in spite of myself. 

That was the end of the affair. Edward's presence 
calmed every one. The Chinamen dispersed, the 
shabby outcast slunk away. Edward put Miss 
Laurie and Ther^se into a cab, and we got into 
another. 

I smiled at him. "Edward to the rescue again," 
I said gratefully. "If you stay in Shanghai much 
longer, Mr. Stevens, I shall grow to be quite 
dependent on you." 

"Nothing would please me better," he answered. 

"How out of date you are," I replied. "Now- 
adays, men like self-reliant girls who carry their 
own suit cases and who don't need to be seen home 
in the evenings." 

"If that is your idea of modern men," Edward 
answered, "I am thankful you class me among the 
ancients." 

"How do you like Shanghai?" I asked. 

"Only fairly well," he answered. "As a place 
for courting it has certain advantages. It provides 
medieval situations of 'Fair Damsel in distress' 
and 'Gallant Knight to the rescue.' However I 



38 MY CHINESE DAYS 

do not know whether such episodes are not too 
dearly bought by the lack of woods and trees and 
streams and wild flowers." 

"The moon and the stars are still left," I sug- 
gested. 

"Too remote," Edward objected. 

"How did you happen to come to meet Miss 
Laurie?" I questioned. 

" I didn't 'happen to come'," he replied ; " I came 
because you wanted me." 

"I never once thought of you," I exclaimed. 
"First I was thinking about Miss Laurie and then 
about the French girl." 

For reply, Mr. Stevens looked at me strangely. 
I don't know what to do when he looks at me that 
way. I feel as if a door in my brain had opened to 
him, and he knew all my thoughts. 

"I should have said, I came because I was think- 
ing of you," he corrected himself. "My thoughts 
led my footsteps." 

When a clever man is gracious, he is really very 
attractive. I was in a yielding mood, and such 
places are dangerous. But being a woman of years, 
I was discreet. I leaned back in the corner of the 
seat and changed the subject. 

"What will become of the poor child Ther^se?" I 
asked. 

"I will go to the French consul in the morning 
and have the matter put straight," Mr. Stevens 
replied. "That scoundrelly brother will have to 
fork up his five hundred taels and make all the 
amends he can. As for what will become of the 



THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 39 

girl, you women will have to decide. After all, 
when she grows used to the idea, she may be willing 
to marry the Chinaman." 

We had reached the steps of the mission house, 
where Doctor Donnellon was receiving the two girls. 

" I can believe it was a shock to her," Mr. Stevens 
continued, "as she was evidently expecting some- 
thing very different." 

"It's quite too much of a shock to contemplate 
marrying at all, no matter how nice the man," I 
said, as I sprang out of the carriage and followed the 
others. 



GLOWING NEEDLES 

THERESE clung to Miss Laurie piteously. 
The next morning after her arrival she had 
absolutely refused to see or write to her 
brother, and as iNIr. Stevens had given the China- 
men only his own address, the fellow had no means 
of tracing his sister. The affair was fixed up 
amicably with the Chinese. The brother produced 
the money already paid over, and the incident was 
closed. To all intents and purposes, Therese Fleurir 
was swallowed up in the Orient. For days she was 
afraid to stir out of the house, but eventually she 
found a position to teach in one of the schools in 
Frenchtown. The salary was not large, but it was 
ample for clothes and board. Doubtless, sooner or 
later, Therese would marry, so the incenti^•e to 
save for a rainy old age was removed. The principal 
of the school, a rich widow, took a great fancy to 
her, and after two weeks invited Therdse to live 
with her. INliss Laurie received an enthusiastic note 
from the child. 

"The house is beautiful, so large and so much 
marble. My bathroom has white tiles. And, 
moreover, Oh, joy ! the cuisine is French. Come, 



GLOWING NEEDLES 41 

my friends, and taste and see and enjoy. Madame 
Rounger has urged me to invite you. The time is 
next Thursday for dinner at eight. Adieu, I live 
only till we meet." 

Miss Laurie, smiled over the exaggerated wording 
of the letter, but nevertheless she was pleased. A 
"community dinner" is a distracting event in a 
missionary's life. 

When he heard of Ther^se's position, Mr. Stevens 
shook his head dubiously. 

"It is too good to be true," he said. "I am 
afraid Ther^se has leaped from the frying pan into 
the fire. Anyway I hate to have you over in 
French town at night. I'll call for you with a 
carriage at ten o'clock." 

"That is much too early," I cried. "Dinner will 
hardly be over." 

"Four women can't eat for two hours," Edward 
objected. "I shall be there at ten." 

"Exactly, 'Just four women'!" I retorted, 
angered. "You needn't come for those women at 
all, Mr. Stevens. They prefer to do as they please 
rather than to ride in a carriage at a man's dictation." 

"Firebrand!" muttered Edward. "I wonder 
what you will set alight!" 

"You?" I flung at him tauntingly. 

For answer, Edward looked at me in that dis- 
concerting way of his which makes me feel there is 
no use pretending. I like Edward, but I don't 
like men's attitude toward women. Men are 
handy, that's all. I stiffened and refused to relent, 
though Edward harped again on his favorite subject 



43 MY CHINESE DAYS 

of souls akin. Men and women are too different 
to be akin. They are like the banks of a river, 
gashed apart. Often and often Doctor Donnellon 
lectured me on my man-hating attitude. "Don't 
you know men like girls who hate them ?" she would 
say. At that I always fled. I did not see Edward 
again before the night of the dinner, and ]\Iiss Laurie 
and I made arrangements to keep our rickshas all 
the evening. 

Madame Rounger's house stood in a large garden 
and thoroughly came up to Thcr^se's description. 
Our dilapidated old rickshas seemed very in- 
significant, rolling in under the high porte-cochere. 
At the ignominious moment when the coolie put 
the shafts on the ground and tilted me suddenly 
forwards, as if I were descending from a camel's 
back, a luxurious automobile panted up behind us. 
Four gentlemen in e^•ening dress got out of the car. 
Being continental, they raised their hats and said 
"Good evening." An extremely handsome Chinese 
footman, dressed in full European uniform, opened 
the door to us, and we entered a hall, the entire 
height of the house, running from east to west. In 
the center, on either side, were doorways hung with 
hea\y ^-elvet porti^es leading to the salon and the 
dining room. 

Ther^se came demurely dowTi the stairs to meet 
us, and led us up to her room, chatting volubly all 
the way. 

" It is to be a big dinner," she announced at once. 
"A man apiece." 

"Pooh, I would not have come if I had known 



GLOWING NEEDLES 43 

there were going to be men," I exclaimed, provoked 
in spite of myself. 

"Silly," said Ther^se lightly, "you needn't be 
afraid. You look very pretty to-night. I love 
that turquoise gown of yours. It makes the brown 
of your eyes and hair deeper. Besides, the food will 
be better because the men are coming." 

Ther^se, in cerise chiffon, was an effective contrast 
to the pale, gold beauty of Miss Laurie, who was 
in absolute white. 

"Ch6rie," cried Ther^se, turning to Miss Laurie, 
" I am so glad you are not wearing a black velvet 
bow in your waist or a narrow black band around 
your throat ! Only blonds pass6 and wicked, wish- 
ing for innocence, do that. You are innocent." 

"You funny child!" answered Miss Laurie. 
"Because my skin is white, must my soul be white 
too?" 

For a moment the young girl's face fell into the 
cast of tragedy so facile to the Latin race. 

"Yes, yes," she replied quickly. "See me — I 
am stained." 

When we entered the salon we found Madame 
Rounger surrounded by the men. She was a 
handsome woman of prepossessing appearance, skil- 
fully dressed in black. She evidently wished to 
be considered young, and I wondered that she 
tolerated any one as truly young as Ther^se near 
her. As soon as the introductions were over, 
Madame Rounger drew me aside. 

"Ther^se says you are a physician, though it is 
hard to believe. You look about eighteen. 



44 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Nevertheless, she assures me it is so. Pray forgive 
me if I trouble you. Just a moment ago, my table 
boy came to me in great consternation, saying that 
his only son was having a convulsion. I ordered 
him to immerse the child at once in a hot mustard 
bath. May I beg you to come to see him ? I shall 
feel more comfortable through dinner." 

"Certainly," I answered. "I shall be very glad 
to see the child." 

Madame Rounger excused herself from the guests 
and led me from the room, through the back hall, 
along a covered corridor, to the semi-detached 
servants' quarters in the rear. On the second floor 
the doors of a row of cell-like rooms opened upon a 
narrow porch. From the corner room came the 
sound of confused and excited talk. The small 
space was crowded with jabbering women and boys. 
The sick child, a boy about ten, had just been taken 
out of the mustard bath and put to bed. 

"Let us turn them all out but his mother," I 
insisted. "The child must be kept quiet." 
Madame Rounger and I pushed the women out by 
their shoulders. We got them as far as the doorway, 
where they massed themselves, following my every 
motion with their beady, curious eyes, as I made a 
quick examination of the child. Madame Rounger 
was able to supply me with the simple remedies 
that were needed, and after half an hour's work, I 
left the child sleeping quietly. As Madame and I 
left the room, the Chinese squeezed in behind us like 
an irresistible tide of water, eddying and flooding 
the land. 



GLOWING NEEDLES 45 

The dinner was delicious. Afterwards we 
scattered through the wide salon to drink our 
coffee, the men still with us, smoking cigarettes. 
Therese, opposite me, was smoking too. 

"Charmante," murmured Monsieur Armand, an 
old, white-haired gentleman beside me. "Do you 
not also smoke?" 

"No," I answered simply, "I am a missionary." 

"Ah, Mademoiselle, that is no answer," he said, 
spreading out his hands and shrugging his shoulders. 
"Smoking is not a deadly sin." 

"But there are prejudices," I objected. "It 
would never do for a missionary to smoke." 

"Anglo-Saxon!" he blurted out. "Incomprehen- 
sible people ! They permit their young women to 
come, unprotected, halfway around the world to a 
heathen, Chinese city, but to smoke a delightful 
little cigarette after dinner, at home with friends, 
Ah, no ! Mon Dieu ! That is scandalous ! Dangers 
they allow you, but no pleasures." 

"But I don't care to smoke," I answered. 

"Ah, no! Of course not. You are like a little 
saint, a medieval saint who stood away off In a 
stained-glass window and smiled on the world with 
sweet, pensive eyes and her smile was a blessing." 

"I'm not at all like that," I contradicted sadly. 
"I'm not up in any cathedral window. I'm here, 
working in China; I've come, as you say, halfway 
around the world to work here. Nor am I pensive 
or sweet: I wish I were. I'm not really good 
enough to be a missionary ; I'm just like everybody 
else." 



46 MY CHINESE DAYS 

The Frenchman looked at me as if I had been his 
daughter. I grew red and wondered why I had 
been so outspoken. Instinctively, I had relied 
upon his ready sympathy and understanding. 

"You do not know yourself, Mademoiselle," he 
replied. "You cannot see the soft, gentle light in 
your brown eyes. Yet, you are making a mistake. 
I am not so old-fashioned as to think all women 
should be mothers — some are too hard and cruel, 
some too unstable and melancholy, some too stupid 
and dull. But you, you ought to be a mother." 

I sat speechless before Monsieur Armand. I was 
astonished that I was not angry, but for the moment 
I was as simple and unaffected as he. 

"And leave my work?" I exclaimed. 

"To find your work," he answered. 

In the pause that followed a shrill scream startled 
us. I sprang to my feet. "The little boy," I cried, 
and ran from the room. Scream after scream filled 
the air, the wild terrified screaming of a child in 
sharp pain. I ran quickly along the corridor and up 
the stairs. The door of the child's room was blocked 
with figures. I pounded at the shoulders of the 
nearest and pushed at them till they moved aside and 
let me pass. For half a moment, frozen with horror, 
I paused on the threshold. 

The child, naked, was lashed to the bed with his 
arms outstretched along the footboard. His head 
was thrown back, and his eyes glared wildly at the 
people. Trickles of blood were running down the 
calves of his legs and dripping from his forearms. In 
the air was the nauseous odor of burnt flesh. An 



GLOWING NEEDLES 47 

old priest in a hideously dirty robe sprang up from 
the floor and thrust a red-hot needle through the 
child's leg. The boy writhed and screamed with 
pain. 

I ran to him and jerked the burning needle out of 
his flesh and began pulling out the other needles 
which were stuck at random in his arms and legs. 
The Chinese behind me pulled at me and tried to 
catch my hands. The old priest broke into a torrent 
of threats and insults. The needles I had plucked 
out still glowed, red-hot, on the floor. I faced the 
Chinese angrily. They began to remember I was 
a foreigner, within the settlement, and they, only 
tolerated aliens. One by one they slunk away, till 
only the priest was left bending over the charcoal 
fire, muttering maledictions on the white woman. I 
cut the thongs and loosed the child. He seemed to 
know I was his deliverer, for he clung to me in frantic 
terror, sobbing and screaming. 

Madame Rounger and Monsieur Armand appeared 
in the doorway. Madame Rounger turned out the 
old priest without ceremony and scolded her servant 
energetically. 

"You shall go if you have any more of your 
heathen practices in my house," she said. "How 
often have I told you you cannot do such things. 
You are not fit to have a child !" 

"But, Madame," stammered the terrified servant, 
"the devil have catchee my son. Must makee 
drive away. No can lose one only son. Must 
makee drive away, must piercee with burning 
needles. No can help. Must do." 



4S MY CHINESE DAYS 

The Chinaman began to crv'. He was torn be- 
tween a thousand fears of the e\dl spirits, of the 
strange white woman, of the burning needles. I 
soothed the child in my arms, and looked up at 
Monsieur Armand who stood beside me. 

"How can you ask me to give up a work like 
this?" I asked. 

He answered slowly, stroking the little boy's sleek 
black head that lay against my shoulder. 

"If you had loved children enough, you would 
have guessed beforehand what these heathen Chinese 
parents would do." I wondered if he were right. 

Edward called for us ^^•ith an auto. jMiss Laurie 
had decided to spend the 'night with Ther^se, so 
he and I were alone in the tonneau. 

"Do you want to go directly home?" Edward 
asked. "Let us first go to the point and back." 

I acquiesced. I liked the drive to the point along 
the river bank. The night was clearly lit with 
stars. Two junks were creeping up the river, their 
huge sails looming, in the twilight, like the out- 
spread wings of a gigantic bat. The air from the 
water was fresh. 

"Now I am going to tell you about the first time 
I saw you," said Edward. 

"You have already," I answered. "It was in 
the Temple of the Red-lipped Idols." 

"No," he said. "It was exactly one year earlier. 
There had been a hea\y snowstorm in Philadelphia, 
and the sleighing was good. I had hired a team of 
horses and a small sleigh and had gone for a long 
night ride. No wonder Ludwig of Bavaria was 



GLOWING NEEDLES 49 

wild about snow at night ! It is the most wonderful, 
the most fairylike sight on earth. I came back 
through Fairmount Park along the Skuylkill and 
down Diamond Street. It was after midnight, and 
this part of the town was silent and soundless as a 
desert, rows and rows of small brick houses exactly 
alike, with lights out and shutters closed. At the 
crossing of Twenty-third and Diamond an arc light 
sputtered brightly. The horses were galloping softly 
on the thick snow. The bells on their collars made 
the only sound in the stillness of the sleeping city. 

"At the corner, I looked up, suddenly and swiftly. 
In a third-story window knelt a girl in a white gown 
with a mass of soft brown hair loose upon her 
shoulders. Our eyes met. She drew back, startled, 
and the horses whirled me past. Like a knight of 
old I have come searching for that girl. In that 
lightning glance her spirit called to my spirit." 

Edward turned and looked at me. "Do you 
remember it?" he asked softly. 

Mute with astonishment, I nodded. 

"I had come home from the theater," I explained 
later. "I had seen Mansfield in 'Peer Gynt', 
and the spell of the play was still on me. I could 
not go to bed, so I knelt at the window and waited. 
I watched the electric light sparkle on the snowflakes. 
The city was intensely still. Then, far off in the 
remoteness, I heard sleigh bells. They seemed to 
be what I had been waiting for. I had listened to 
them for several minutes before the sleigh dashed 
past, yet when you looked up, I was startled. I 
drew back and knelt there, barkening, while the 



so MY CHINESE DAYS 

sound of the bells grew fainter. After I could hear 
them no longer, I still knelt at the window, listening 
and watching the light sparkle on the snow." 

Edward's hand closed over mine. 

"Though you fled halfway around the world to 
escape me, you could not," he said. 

I left my fingers in his. The air from the water 
was cool and fresh in our faces. The gliding junks 
were out of sight — only the wide, slow stream 
crept along the bank. 



VI 

A ROMANCE OF THE EAST 

I WAS amusing myself and incidentally the chil- 
dren by distributing a stack of old Christmas 
cards in the ward. My explanations were some- 
what crude and simple, as my Chinese vocabulary 
was still limited. Doctor Donnellon and Miss 
Lancaster came in. Miss Lancaster has charge of 
the municipal orphanage for city waifs, and her sick 
children are taken care of at St. Margaret's. 

"I've just had a most embarrassing experience," 
said Miss Lancaster, laughing at me. "I came to 
take the 'Blue Moon' back with me, but she won't 
come. She said the 'Summertime Doctor' (which 
is my Chinese name) had given her two pennies, 
and that if I would let her stay a little longer perhaps 
the doctor would give her another." 

"You are spoiling these children," said Doctor 
Donnellon, shaking her finger at me. "A moment 
ago the matron sent for me to see the owners of 
'Weeping Willow', who wished to take her home. 
The youngster was making a terrible rumpus, and 
begging to be allowed to stay. What do you suppose 
she said? 'Please, Foreign Healer, let me stay and 
be the little slave of the hospital ! Here, when the 
amahs beat me, their hands are light.' " 



52 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"Poor little kid," I said, "I wish we could keep 
them all." 

"Even the little slave girls are better off than my 
waifs," said Miss Lancaster. 

A sudden commotion in the courtyard startled 
us. Running to the nearest window, I saw four 
men bringing In a long wicker couch, upon which lay 
a figure closely covered with blankets. A dozen or 
more men and women surrounded the couch. A 
nurse came flying upstairs. 

"She has eaten opium," she cried excitedly. 

"Another one of those tragic cases," said Doctor 
Donnellon, as we hurried down. "So often the 
family only bring the victims to us as a last resort 
when it is too late to save the patient." 

Before coming to China I had never known that 
eating opium was the favorite way of committing 
suicide, nor had I Imagined the alarming frequency 
of such attempts. 

The bearers had deposited the couch in the empty 
clinic room. Some one uncovered the girl's face — 
pale and tranquil as the face of one already lying In 
the shadow of death. Its serene beauty fascinated 
me. It seemed almost sacrilegious to begin artificial 
respiration and energetic stimulation. Among the 
group gathered round two figures stand out in my 
memory. One was that of a woman who stood close 
beside the young girl, looking at her fixedly. Now 
and again she put out her hand and laid the back of 
it against the girl's cheek. She neither cried nor 
spoke. The other was a man dressed handsomely in 
satin, who stood aside talking to the matron and 



A ROMANCE OF THE EAST 53 

Doctor Donnellon. Now and again he glanced at 
the girl, yet in his impassive face I could see no 
trace of emotion. The rest of the group shrieked 
and talked wildly and could not be quieted. Doctor 
Donnellon gave her orders with the surety of 
long experience. Slowly, rhythmically, we raised 
the girl's arms above her head and crossed them 
over her chest. There was no answering tinge 
of color in her lips, no spontaneous flutter of her 
breath. 

"It's a hopeless case," said Doctor Donnellon. 
"She ate the opium about ten this morning but 
was not discovered till four this afternoon. Then 
they brought her right around." 

"Why did she take it?" I asked. "Was she a 
slave?" 

"No, she is a second wife," Doctor Donnellon 
said. "That man is her husband. She has been 
married about six months." 

" I don't wonder she ate it," I exclaimed. " Prac- 
tically she was a slave." 

"Oh, no," Doctor Donnellon answered. "If the 
first wife has no children, a Chinaman marries a 
second, and if she bears him children, she is honored 
above the first. In this case the Great Wife, as the 
first is called, was very fond of this girl. The hus- 
band also valued her highly. She was not at all 
mistreated." 

"Then why?" I asked again, raising my eyes to 
Doctor Donnellon. Her face, beside that of the 
immobile Chinese woman, had the same expression 
of submission to fate. 



54 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"She must die," interposed the Chinese woman, 
again touching the girl's cold face. 

"Because she was forced to leave her mother." 
Doctor Donnellon answered. "This woman is her 
mother." 

I looked at the mother and daughter and pondered 
upon the strange love that had held them together. 

The woman touched Doctor Donnellon's arm. 
" It is enough," she said. "The spirit is already gone. 
Permit me now to take my daughter home and light 
the red candles and offer the food that everything 
may be fitting for the journey of her spirit." 

Doctor Donnellon ceased her labor. Quiet, with 
the strange, sure repose of death, the girl lay upon 
the couch. Suddenly, some one began to laugh, and 
immediately the entire group were laughing loudly. 
I turned away. That sound of laughter as a greeting 
to death always curdled my blood with horror. I 
had heard it before in the wards when a patient 
died, and the rest sat up in bed and laughed aloud. 
Doctor Donnellon followed me out of the room. 

"Doesn't it make you shiver?" I asked. 

"Yes," she said, " I can't get used to it. It seems 
heartless, but no one can accuse the Chinese of that. 
Their loves are not our loves, but they are great 
loves. Think of this young girl. She made one 
early attempt to run home and was brought back. 
Then she bought morphine, and the first wife found 
it. This time she had been buying it little by little 
for months and hiding it in her money belt till she 
had enough for a fatal dose." 

I was silent, considering what seemed to me a 



A ROMANCE OF THE EAST 55 

childish, morbid, uncontrolled affection. Doctor 
Donnellon must have read my thoughts. 

"All great nations have their own peculiar 
romance," she said. "In ancient times romance 
lay in the friendship of man for man, in the David 
and Jonathan sort of relationship. Later on, in 
the feudal ages, romance dwelt in the service of a 
vassal to his king, and loyalty was the great romance 
of life. In our modern American world the love 
of a man for a woman is the great romance." 

I caught Doctor Donnellon's idea. "Not the 
relationship, but the romance, is indispensable," I 
said quickly. 

' ' Exactly , ' ' Doctor Donnellon replied . "At home , 
there is a new romance growing up, the friendship of 
woman for woman, that parallels the ancient friend- 
ship of men. But in China all romance centers in 
the relation of parent to child. Marriage is no 
more to them than an ordinary business enterprise." 

We had reached the steps of the house during our 
philosophizing, and Doctor Donnellon turned to 
face the hospital. Its many windows and wide 
verandahs gave it a comfortable, inviting appear- 
ance. On the second-story porch, a group of waifs 
were playing. The sun was low, and the sky 
above the buildings burned a deep, golden yellow. 
Already, close over the ground, a faint, misty veil 
hung. With a quick, spontaneous motion, Doctor 
Donnellon threw out one hand towards the hospital. 

"There lies my romance," she said abruptly. 

As if regretting her frankness, she turned quickly 
and walked into the house. I sat down on the 



56 MY CHINESE DAYS 

steps and propped my elbows on my knees. A 
profound sense of melancholy enveloped me, and 
the tragic death of the young Chinese girl filled me 
with sadness. Twilight fell while I brooded. One 
by one the stars came out, and each one made me 
lonelier than before. Then Edward came. 

"What is the matter with you, Wilhelmina?" he 
asked. ."You look as if some one had hurt you." 

I looked up at him gratefully. I was thankful 
for his mere presence. 

"Life in general hurts, doesn't it?" I answered. 
"Everything goes wrong. All love is wasted and 
lost." 

I recounted the events of the afternoon, shivering 
a little as I retold the story. 

"I believe you are cold," Edward exclaimed. 
"Put this on." 

He wrapped the coat which he had been carrying 
over his arm around my shoulders. "You don't 
even know how to take care of yourself. You need 
a man to look after you. The trouble with you 
modern women is that you are all sensitiveness and 
no strength, no endurance, no robust optimism. A 
man knows it will all come out right, for he is so 
delightfully conceited that he trusts his own powers 
to right the whole world." 

Edward seated himself beside me and shamelessly 
put his arm around me. The strength of it com- 
forted me, and I dropped against him, my head on 
his shoulder. The words of the wise old psalmist 
came to my mind : "A man shall be as the shadow of 
a great rock in a weary land." 



VII 

THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 

WE will have to hurry if we expect to be 
ready by eleven o'clock," said Doctor 
Donnellon, as we started across the 
compound after breakfast to the hospital. "The 
carriage is coming at that hour." 

"I'll begin the dressings right away," I answered. 
"I am quite eager to see what a Chinese wedding 
feast is like." 

"This will be a modified festival on our account," 
replied Doctor Donnellon. "Nevertheless it will 
give you some idea of the Chinese customs." 

At the hospital we parted. Doctor Donnellon to 
make medical rounds, and I to do the surgical 
dressings. One of the head nurses was also invited 
to the feast, as the old lady whose son was being 
married had been treated in the hospital. They 
were a very modern family. The old dowager 
sent her daughters-in-law to the hospital for their 
babies. 

At eleven o'clock Doctor Donnellon and I were 
dressed and ready. I had consulted Doctor 
Donnellon as to what I should wear and was 
accordingly dressed in shirt waist and skirt. She 
wore her brown fur coat and cap. 



S8 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"Probably we shall have to wait an hour or so 
before the carriage comes. Chinese have no idea 
of time," said Doctor Donnellon, settling herself at 
her desk. "A Chinese feast is a reluctant duty 
for me." 

"Oh, I think it will be quite exciting," I answered. 

"It's all very well for you," Doctor Donnellon 
replied. "You are new and fresh. Even managing 
chopsticks will amuse you. But Chinese feasts are 
old stories to me. Wait till you have tried it, three 
hours at table with Chinese women, and no real 
conversation at all ; besides that, there will be at 
least thirty dishes to sample. Let me warn you, child, 
do be careful. Choose what you eat and only eat a 
little. The cooking is savory, and most foreigners 
are apt to overeat." 

"I'm glad I don't know much Chinese," I said. 
"I will only have to smile and eat, and eat and 
smile." 

"As a continuous performance, that is not as 
easy as you think," said Doctor Donnellon. 

Mio-Kung announced the arrival of the carriage. 
The eldest daughter-in-law, mother of three sons, had 
come in a ricksha to escort us. It was then almost 
twelve, and we still had to wait while A-doo finished 
dressing. When she joined us, I was astonished at 
her fine appearance. She was dressed in plum- 
colored satin and wore a quantity of jewelry — two 
gold rings, a beautiful jade ring, and a long jade 
hairpin. A-doo and the daughter-in-law rode in 
rickshas, while we rode in the carriage. I had hardly 
recognized the daughter-in-law in her best clothes 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 59 

of black satin lined with turquoise blue, and her 
many gold bracelets and pearl ornaments. The 
carriage crossed Nanking Road, drove around the 
Race Course, and took the road to the Native 
City. 

" I had no idea they lived so far away, " exclaimed 
Doctor Donnellon. "I imagined they were just 
around the corner." 

"I thought there were no carriage roads in the 
Native City," I said. "The other day we saw 
nothing but alleys." 

"These horse roads are new and have been cut 
through since the Revolution," answered Doctor 
Donnellon. "When I first came out, a carriage in 
the Native City was an unheard-of thing." 

We entered by the New North Gate cut through 
the wall a year ago. A three-storied temple with 
ancient casement windows of leaded glass clung to 
the inner side of the wall. The road, though wide 
enough for our small coup6, barely allowed a ricksha 
to squeeze past us, while it would have been quite 
impossible to turn or to pass another vehicle. A 
footman ran at the horse's head shouting and clear- 
ing the way, "The horse carriage comes. The horse 
carriage comes." As we penetrated the city more 
deeply the road narrowed till the wheels of the 
wagon scraped the walls of the houses. Suddenly 
we were stopped by a Chinese policeman. The 
footman and coachman and policeman had a heated 
conversation, which ended by the footman dashing 
on ahead. 

"I suppose that driving through this street is 



6o MY CHINESE DAYS 

against 'Old Custom'," said Doctor Donnellon, 
"and the footman has gone on ahead to collect 
enough money to bribe the policeman." 

We became at once the center of a closely packed 
crowd, very good-natured and laughing but intensely 
personal. Men with youngsters perched astride 
their shoulders, women with baskets of food, and 
numberless children clustered around us. 

"See, the outside-kingdom woman wears her 
clothes inside out," laughed a young girl, pointing 
at Doctor Donnellon's coat which was made with the 
fur on the outside. 

"She, I think, is the Elder Sister," continued the 
loquacious one, "while the small one is the Little 
Sister. The Little Sister has no earrings, but she 
has round pieces of gold in two teeth. I myself 
prefer gold in the ears." 

"What a pity she has such a very big nose," 
remarked an old woman, peering at me over the 
young girl's shoulder. "I am sure, her feet are 
large too." 

"Really, this is awful, Doctor Donnellon," I said 
desperately. "I never imagined I would mind it, 
but it grows embarrassing after a while. You never 
know what they will say next." 

"They say anything they please," said Doctor 
Donnellon, "and it never ends. They keep on and 
on, and it grows worse and worse. At a new station 
in the interior, the Chinese just swarm over the 
mission-house like ants in an ant hill. They line 
the dining room wall to watch the missionaries eat, 
they enter the bedroom to see the quality of the beds, 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 6i 

and they often try to watch the novel and dangerous 
process of bathing, immersed in a tub." 

Doctor Donnellon leaned out of the window and 
began conversing with the crowd. 

"From where has she such clear words?" I heard 
the old hag exclaim. "Her doctrine is truly good to 
hear, but her clothes are very ugly to look upon." 

Her attitude astounded me. Would I ever be 
able to foretell the Oriental point of view? 

After a half an hour or so of waiting, the footman 
returned, the policeman was appropriately mollified, 
and we proceeded unmolested on our way. 

The bridegroom's house opened directly upon the 
street. A wide gate in a high wall led into a shallow 
courtyard which was separated by a few steps from 
the main guest hall. This was a high, raftered room 
whose walls were hung from ceiling to floor with 
banners of scarlet satin. Heavily embroidered gold 
characters ran up and down the banners, proclaiming 
"Long Life and Happiness" and many other 
blessings in the shape of riches and sons. In the 
center of the wall facing the door stood a polished 
redwood table on which were placed the ceremonial 
candles and offerings. The seats of honor for the 
Chinese guests were placed along the sides of the 
room, a table and a chair, a table and a chair, in strict 
and orderly sequence against the wall . Each table and 
chair was covered with a cloth of crimson satin also 
heavily embroidered with threads of gold and black. 
The side of the room facing the court was entirely open. 
Four slender, round columns supported the roof. 
Dwarf peach trees and mimosas in ancient porcelain 



62 MY CHINESE DAYS 

flower bowls of blue and white stood in the corners 
of the court by the shallow steps. Standing on the 
threshold to greet us was the sprightly old dowager 
and her four handsome sons, all sumptuously dressed 
in brocaded Chinese satins. 

It was a scene of bygone days of splendor, of the 
ancient, clannish, patriarchal life of the forgotten 
past. The gorgeousness and harmony of the picture 
took my breath away. I could not have imagined 
anything more effective than that wide, open room, 
with its high, sloping ceiling and its riotous crimson 
and gold walls. 

Doctor Donnellon looked at me triumphantly. 

"I thought you would be pleasantly surprised," 
she said. "Wait till you have seen the bride's 
trousseau." 

A host of household servants, coolies, amahs, and 
children, were constantly coming and going. We 
were ushered into a small reception room to rest 
and refresh ourselves. Sweetmeats were placed be- 
fore us — sugared lotus buds, and watermelon seeds, 
and puffed rice candy. We sat about the little, 
marble-topped tables and nibbled the sweets and 
made the conventional inquiries. Then we were 
led to the bride's apartment. She had arrived the 
night before. 

We entered a long room in which a young girl was 
standing alone. One arm hung at her side, and the 
other was stretched up along the parted curtains of 
the nuptial bed. She was immaculately dressed and 
rouged and bejeweled. Her oval face, with its high 
cheek bones and low-bridged nose; gave that illusive. 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 63 

Oriental appearance of calm. She gave me an im- 
pression of immense isolation. Yet she was utterly 
composed and knew exactly what was expected of 
her in the traditional position of bride. The dowager 
mother-in-law, the three other daughters-in-law, 
and numerous young granddairghters accompanied 
us. 

''Don't be afraid to look at everything. Touch 
and examine things," Doctor Donnellon said to me. 
"They will be disappointed if you don't. Think of 
what your very best manners are and then do the 
opposite." 

Thus emboldened, I turned towards the bed 
where the young girl was still standing immobile. 
It was of deeply glowing redwood, lovely as the 
loveliest mahogany, carved and hung with silken 
curtains. On one side the curtains were looped 
back with heavy silver chains, the hook shaped like 
a hand with clasping fingers. Many bright-colored 
balls and fantastic ornaments hung from the curtain 
rods. 

"What a comfort it is to be so frankly mate- 
rialistic," Doctor Donnellon said, "and not to have 
to pretend one only cares for the giver of a present." 

"Yes, it is simpler," I laughed. 

The old mother-in-law proudly displayed the bride 
to us, her ruddy cheeks, her health, her many pearl 
ornaments and gold bracelets. The bride, immobile 
and silent, suffered it all. Along one side of the wall 
from floor to ceiling were piled her trunks, handsome 
boxes of polished wood with hoops of beaten brass. 
Over each keyhole was a beaten brass butterfly 



64 MY CHINESE DAYS 

with spread wings whose body moved aside to dis- 
close the keyhole. 

"What is the meaning of the shiny balls hanging 
along the bed?" I asked. 

"They are all best wishes for the safe arrival of 
sons," explained Doctor Donnellon. " I suppose you 
think it is a little early to think about sons, but sons 
are the one thought and aim of a Chinese marriage. 
The bride knows it as well as the groom. Getting 
married and having children is the business of life, 
and they set about it in a most business-like, matter- 
of-fact way." 

Of course I had known all this before, but I 
realized it more acutely when I saw the young bride 
standing by the bedside in the house of her husband. 
I felt a sudden revulsion against this brutal Chinese 
attitude. Materialists, sensualists, I called them to 
myself. When we left the bride's room, she was 
standing again by the curtains of the bed, gazing 
after us with her inscrutable eyes. During our 
entire visit she had not spoken a word. Was she 
merely a living image, a symbol of an ancient rite, 
or a young girl, aquiver with life, curbed by the 
iron custom of years into that attitude of strange 
impassivity! I wanted to speak to her alone, to 
touch her hand, to make her smile. I wondered 
if endearments and caresses would change her back 
into something quick and responsive, or would she 
always remain so, silent, motionless, gazing at us 
with her soft brown eyes. 

Of course I never spoke to her. I had no chance. 
The old dowager carried us off to show us the rest 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 65 

of the house, and she was left there alone, standing 
by her bedside, in the quiet of the empty room, 
waiting till the next visitors came to look her over. 
She haunted me. While I looked at all the beautiful 
things that were shown to us, I kept on thinking of 
her. How strange are our fates ! If she bore sons 
she would be happy ! There she waited the test 
of life. Did she think? Did she feel? Or was 
she concentrated in merely waiting? I never saw 
her again. 

At last the feast began. The old dowager and 
her two eldest daughters-in-law ate with us. The 
men ate in a room apart. 

"Where are the bride and groom?" I asked. 

"For one month they have the privilege of eating 
alone together in the bride's apartment," the dowager 
replied. 

My mind leaped upon that reply. What would 
the young girl find to say to this man she had never 
seen before, she who had never spoken to a man alone 
in her whole life ? How mysterious everyday events 
are! 

"What beautiful ivory chopsticks," Doctor 
Donnellon exclaimed, much to the delight of the 
family, who wished everything to be effusively 
admired. I watched Doctor Donnellon enviously. 
She used her chopsticks as if born to them. Mine 
wobbled around hopelessly in my fingers. Fore- 
seeing such a contingency, a silver fork, made like 
a hairpin with an extra prong for a handle, was given 
to me. I speared the morsels on it and nibbled from 
them as daintily as I could. 



66 MY CHINESE DAYS 

The feast was indeed marvelous. All the well- 
known dishes were served — the meat and vegetable 
salad called "The Mandarin's Hat", "The Eight 
Precious Pudding" with its dates and raisins, in- 
numerable small omelets, meat patties, pigeon eggs, 
wild duck, fried batter, and last of all rice and tea. 

"I really and truly can't eat another mouthful," 
I said in despair to Doctor Donnellon. 

"Never mind, you don't have to eat the rice," 
she said. "It is quite polite to leave it, as that 
shows that the feast has been so ample and delicious 
that you do not need the rice to complete your meal." 

As a sign that she had finished. Doctor Donnellon 
waved her chopsticks in the air and laid them down 
across her bowl of rice, uttering the customary 
phrase of Chinese etiquette, "Use slowly", to the 
rest. The old dowager lifted the chopsticks from 
across the bowl and placed them on the table as a 
sign that Doctor Donnellon was urged to eat more, 
saying insistently, "Eat plenty." After this cere- 
mony had been performed by each member of the 
party and the tea drunk, the feast was over. The 
family, the children, and their servitors all crowded 
into the great guest hall to see us off. The gate 
man bolted the door in the wall behind us, shutting 
in the splendor of the crimson-hung room, and we 
were again in the narrow, muddy alley in the Chinese 
City. As we passed along by the windowless walls, 
I wondered what strange spectacles were to be seen 
behind their jealous doors, and I fell to dreaming 
about the hidden, mysterious life going on so remorse- 
lessly and stealthily behind those closed gates, 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 67 

Doctor Donnellon roused me by a sigh of relief. 
"I'm glad it's over," she said. "It is a tremendous 
strain to be polite according to Chinese etiquette 
for four hours." 

On Nanking Road I saw Edward striding along 
briskly towards St. Margaret's hospital. 

" If you don't mind, I'll get out and walk with Mr. 
Stevens," I said. "I feel like a stuffed pig." A 
few- minutes later Edward and I were swinging along 
together, and I had launched into a full description 
of the feast. 

"I wish I had been there," exclaimed Edward 
enthusiastically. "They must be a pretty rich old 
family. I delight in the frank pleasure these old 
codgers take in their possessions. They are far 
more sincere than we," 

"I didn't feel that way," I said. "I was op- 
pressed, weighed down, by their evident worship 
of things. Their accumulation of objects stifled 
me. 

Edward smiled one of his wise smiles, and I felt 
myself blushing, for I had spoken with some heat. 

"You are betraying one of your handicaps in 
life, Wilhelmina," he said, looking at me with ten- 
der eyes, "your spirituality. Spirituality is, in all 
truth, 'other worldliness. ' People with a love for 
things have a firmer grip on the life of this everyday 
world. Now, take me, for instance ; I would make 
a good anchor for you." 



VIII 



THE SONG OF THE COOLIES 



Y 



"OU might as well marry Edward Stevens 
at once and be done with it," said Doc- 
tor Donnellon. 
We had made evening rounds together and were 
standing on the wide second-story verandah over- 
looking the compound. Behind us on the porch was 
a row of beds containing the cases of bone and gland 
tuberculosis. Before us lay the brief breathing space 
of the compound's grass plot, walled in by a mass of 
Chinese houses. Their peaked roofs cut across the 
purple, silver-spangled sky in fantastic outlines. As 
we stood by the railing listening, I heard the palm 
leaves softly rattling against each other. From a 
near-by alley came the weird, insistent song of a 
"carry coolie" : 



Flung out into the night the notes dominated the air. 

"Well, why don't you?" Doctor Donnellon 
repeated. ^ 

Without turning my head, I answered. "I don't 
want to marry at all. It's quite another thing for a 



THE SONG OF THE COOLIES 69 

man. It is no deprivation, no loss, merely a gratifica- 
tion, and an expansion. For women it is different. 
Marriage is the fundamental self-sacrifice. It means 
the giving up of conscious, individual life ; it means 
wilfully stepping out of the wild, up-rushing, tingling 
current of modern activity to merge oneself into the 
slow growth of the race. I can't do it," I cried. 
"I won't." 

"Marriage is the function of woman," insisted 
Doctor Donnellon. 

"Not of all women," I objected. 

"Making babies is their one perfect art," she added 
softly. 

"If more women refused to expend all their 
vitality in making babies, they would have enough 
left for art," I retorted. 

"Is art more necessary than babies?" Doctor 
Donnellon asked. "Is any work of art as perfectly 
beautiful as a new-born babe?" 

We stood in the silence of the evening. Not a 
sound of civilization struck our ears. Then, the 
coolie's cry, which had ceased a moment, began 
again. I listened . till it grew fainter and fainter in 
the distance. His was the song of the burden 
bearers. 

"Do you remember Wadsworth's Lucy poems?" 
I asked, suddenly turning to Doctor Donnellon. 
"'Whirled round with rocks and stones and all 
inanimate, insensate things in the mighty cosmic 
circle.* I think of marriage like that." 

Doctor Donnellon laid her hand on my shoulder 
and stooped to peer Into my eyes. 



70 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"Tr>' it, child," she said. "We are all torn by 
the ineradicable desire." 

As I followed her silently down the ward, I recalled 
my surprise when I first saw a ward in a Chinese 
hospital. \Miiteness had grown so identical with 
cleanliness in my mind that the many-colored 
ward startled me — black bedsteads, blue quilts, 
pink walls. To-night, this color scheme seemed 
to me the most natural in the world. Besides, I 
liked it. I found myself liking every^thing in the 
hospital with a strange intensity, as one does who 
will soon leave. 

About a week later Edward and I went off for a 
long walk through the winding paths between the 
fields. The rape was ripe and covered the whole 
earth with its golden blossoms like a cloak. 

"You ought to get out more often, Wilhelmina," 
said Edward. "You are very pale." 

"You mean 'as sallow as a duck's foot'," I 
answered, laughing. "But really I get out at least 
one afternoon a week, which is more than I could 
be sure of at home." 

You can't compare America with China," Edward 
answered. "In America, the air itself is electricity. 
It's a penalty to loaf. Here, it's an insidious leth- 
argy that makes all work double the effort. No one 
can work here as he does at home. It's pre- 
posterous." 

"No one does," I answered wistfully, remember- 
ing the merry days when I too was a part of the 
giddy whirl. 

"Americans are the only busy people on the earth," 



THE SONG OF THE COOLIES 71 

continued Edward, well launched on a favorite 
hobby of his. 

I walked ahead on the narrow footpath with 
Edward close behind me. I heard his voice dreamily, 
hardly noticing the words, or their import. My 
eyes wandered idly over the wide plains, studded 
here and there with a low hut encircled in black 
cypresses. At one small group of houses we found 
the women out hanging up cotton thread to dry. 
They stretched it on a series of T-shaped sticks, 
several of them working together. The children, 
sociable and jolly, played around their skirts. 
Little streams meandered by, and we crossed them 
on ancient, primeval stepping-stones made of great 
slabs, rude and strong enough for the days of the 
Pharaohs. Now and then a wolfish cur ran out at 
us. The chimneys of Shanghai were but a smudge 
on the horizon. We were plunged in hoary antiq- 
uity. It was not only due to the different land- 
scape and the clothes and occupations of the people, 
but more- than anything else it was due to the look 
on their faces. They were utterly different, alien, 
soaked with the life of the earth, quick with the 
change of the seasons, strangely happy. I looked 
at them wonderingly, marvelling at their happiness. 
So far apart were we thrust by the centuries that 
our minds could only touch at the elemental points 
of bodily sensations. I wondered if I too could 
drop back, could forget the present and touch, as 
they did, the strange, illusive, subtle forces of 
nature. Edward's voice startled me out of my day 
dream. 



72 ' MY CHINESE DAYS 

"Here we are at the Creek," he said. "Shall we 
hail a boat and float down instead of walking back ?" 

We had emerged at a ferry landing. Smooth 
stone slabs supported on wooden piles led from the 
high bank to the water. I suddenly felt tired. 

"Yes," I answered simply. 

"Sit here," said Edward, folding his coat into a 
cushion. "We may not be able to get a boat at 
once — one clean enough, I mean." 

He ran down the steps to parley with the ferryman. 
From the rape fields behind me came the faint, 
distant "song of the coolies", growing clearer and 
sharper. Soon five men emerged from the path, 
carrying baskets of cabbage slung on bamboo poles 
across their shoulders. I watched them file down 
the stone stairway and step carefully on to the 
ferry. The ferryman, a boy of about sixteen, poled 
them across. A cool draft of air was wafted up 
from the yellow-brown water. Beside me was a 
battered temple in which sat a forsaken Buddha in 
his attitude of eternal calm, with knees crossed and 
smiling vermilion lips. A pervasive mystery exuded 
from this decayed temple, from the swaying rape 
seed, and the swiftly flowing river. For ages and 
eons of time it had been the same. I seemed to 
sink into this universal life, to be swallowed up by it. 

"Here comes a cleanlsh junk," called Edward. 

I ran down the flight of stone slabs and stepped 
on the ferry. It poled out to midstream and drew 
up alongside the chosen junk, and we easily jumped 
across. The boat, long and narrow, was taking 
garden truck to the Shanghai markets. The 



THE SONG OF THE COOLIES 73 

vegetables were piled in a sunken cradle in the 
center of the boat. Two men were working side by 
side at the long stern oar. 

"This is much cleaner than most of them," said 
Edward. "We were lucky." 

I made no reply ; I was tongue-tied. In silence 
we seated ourselves in the prow of the boat. I felt 
more and more unreal, as I watched the house boats 
tugged up stream, each boat accommodating one or 
two families in its one small cabin. The faces 
that looked out at me were strange, like the faces 
seen in a fantastic nightmare. 

"What's the matter, Wilhelmina?" Edward asked. 
"I believe you are completely tired out. In the 
name of thunder, why won't you marry me? I 
would make of my love for you a wall to protect 
you from all weariness and sorrow. Why won't 
you understand ? " 

Edward leaned closer, and his face too became as 
one of the dream faces. 

"It's you who don't understand," I whispered. 

The junk swept around a bend in the stream. The 
link with the past was snapped, and the present, 
with all its immediate urgency, rushed upon us. 
Just as we turned the corner we saw a house boat 
with a pretentious, enclosed cabin slowly and 
sedately turn turtle. 

Our rowers dropped their oars and rushed for- 
ward, shrieking wildly. Several other boats began 
to float around aimlessly, while their occupants 
screamed and yelled. In the midst of the stream the 
overturned, flat-bottomed boat floated serenely. No 



74 MY CHINESE DAYS 

sound came from within it. I wondered if the Im- 
prisoned family were screaming. 

"Make the idiots stop yelling, can't you, Wilhel- 
mina," said Edward. "We must get there at once 
and chop those fellows out." 

"Won't the boat turn back?" I asked. 

"It can't," Edward answered. "The roof must 
be caught in the muddy bottom." 

My lethargy dropped away. I shouted at the 
coolies in dialect, and they pushed our boat beside 
the upturned hulk. From a second junk Edward 
got an ax. Leaping upon the boat, he began to 
chop at the wooden planks. Up and down the creek, 
the hollow sound of the falling ax echoed and re- 
echoed. 

"Confound the wood," Edward growled. "It 
must be teak. It's as hard as stone." 

Two Chinese sprang across from a junk that had 
just arrived, they and Edward took turns chopping. 
Their faces grew red from exertion, and streams of 
water dripped from their hands. 

"We'll be too late," Edward cried. "She's filling. 
I feel her settle." 

As if to answer his fear, a cry penetrated the 
wooden walls of the cabin and floated up through 
the water. The next crash of Edward's ax cut 
an air hole through. After the first opening was 
made, the wood splintered in all directions. Edward 
plunged in his hand and caught a Chinaman's arm. 
While the other men continued ripping and tearing 
at the planks, Edward pulled the fellow out through 
the hole. I shall never forget the sheer fright 



THE SONG OF THE COOLIES 75 

depicted on his face — eyes rolled upwards, lips 
blue, and every inch of hair on his close-cropped head 
standing erect. 

"How many more inside?" I called to him. 

He held up two fingers. 

No sooner were his feet out of the hole than a 
second Chinese face appeared. This man was fat. 
After he had poked his head and shoulders through, 
the rest of his body stuck. At the sight, the 
spectators began to laugh uncontrollably. Edward 
threw down his ax and held his sides with laughter. 
The fat, terrified man, hanging by his armpits, made 
a ridiculous figure. Suddenly I remembered there 
was a third inside. 

''Hurry, Edward, pull him out," I cried. "There 
is another one inside. Don't waste so much time. 
The last one will drown." 

The two Chinese began tugging at the out- 
stretched arms of the fat man. A sound of loud 
ripping and tearing of cloth rewarded their efforts. 
The next instant they jerked out a comparatively 
thin man, leaving his cocoon of padded garments 
stuck like a cork in the opening. He promptly 
collapsed upon the roof. Edward and I tore away 
his clothes and peered into the hole. At first we 
could distinguish nothing, but as our eyes grew 
accustomed to the semi-darkness, we saw that about 
three feet of air space remained above the surface 
of the water. Stools and tables and eating bowls 
were floating about, bobbing against each other. 

"I see no one," said Edward, drawing back. 

' ' How many inside ? " I again asked the rescued men. 



76 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Simultaneously they each held up one finger. 

"Must catchee one piecee woman," said the first. 

"Never mind. Belong second wife," added the 
second. 

As Edward caught their meaning, he quickly began 
taking off his coat and shoes. While I watched him 
prepare to dive into that submerged room, I suddenly 
knew that I loved him, and the knowledge filled me 
with a strange terror and a strange pride. 

Edward let himself down feet foremost. A 
moment his fingers clung to the opening, then they 
too disappeared, and I heard a dull splash in the 
cabin. I knelt at the hole. I believe some one 
held my feet to prevent my falling in. I stared at 
the heavy darkness till my eyes blinked with tears. 
At last, when I could scarcely see, I realized that 
Edward's head had appeared at the surface of the 
water. The next moment he raised himself shoulder 
high and dragged up the form of an unconscious 
woman. 

"I can't lift her," he called. "I am standing 
on a stool on a table, and it's very shaky. Throw 
me a rope. Quick. I am afraid she is too far 
gone. She was lying on the bottom covered by 
the bed." 

"A rope! A rope!" I called to the Chinese. In 
despair I wondered where I could find a rope in the 
middle of Soochow Creek. But I had forgotten 
the ways of the river. A boy shinned up the mast 
of the next boat and deftly detached the tow rope 
from its summit. The tow-man on the shore 
stepped out of his harness, and in a second a long 



. THE SONG OF THE COOLIES 77 

strong rope was ready. The men lowered an end 
to Edward. 

"Ready, pull," he called, but be careful. She is 
unconscious." 

When the men had drawn the woman out, I too 
was sure she was dead. But "once a doctor, always 
a doctor." My hypodermic case, as usual, was in 
my wrist bag. After an injection I began artificial 
respiration. Before I knew it, Edward was beside 
me, helping with the rhythmic, swinging motions of 
her arms. I was oblivious of all but the unconscious 
woman lying on the planks of the upturned boat. 
Her face was immobile and pallid as a death mask, 
but her heart was still beating. Gradually a 
faint pink tinge spread over her lips and finger tips. 
Then my attention relaxed, and I suddenly became 
conscious that our boat was the center of a closely 
packed flotilla of junks from which hundreds of 
bright brown eyes scrutinized us with interested 
curiosity. Coolies, with their burdens resting at 
their feet, were ranged along both banks. In the 
distance the song of approaching coolies grew more 
and more distinct. 

Never till I die will I forget that song of the coolies, 
monotonous, insistent, throbbing with a hidden 
power, the song of the burden bearers of the earth. 
At that moment I merged myself with them. 

The girl drew a hesitating, fluttering breath. The 
bystanders gave a triumphant shout. I straightened 
myself and walked back to our hired boat. Slowly 
the impacted mass of junks wormed itself apart. 
Once again Edward and I, sitting on the prow of our 



78 MY CHINESE DAYS 

boat, drifted down stream towards Shanghai. I 
was tired and leaned against Edward's shoulder in an 
abandonment of content. 

"Do you love me?" he murmured into my ear. 

" I don't know," I answered. "But I am glad it's 
decided. The rest doesn't matter." 

Along the shore path, the coolies hurried back and 
forth, carrying their ceaseless burdens, singing ever 
the same, weird, monotonous song, the Song of the 
Burden Bearers of the East. 



IX 

THE WARM GRAVE 

COURTING is just as happy a time for a 
girl in China as anywhere else under the 
sun. All the world seemed to aid and abet 
us. If Edward so much as called for afternoon 
tea, as soon as the tea was drunk everybody would 
fade away from the room, leaving Edward and me 
together. I found it a little strange at first, but I 
must confess that I liked it. On the whole it was an 
excellent plan. It seemed as if all the world were 
pushing us together — not only the people, Doctor 
Donnellon and Miss Laurie, but all the inanimate 
Chinese things about us. 

My importance was greatly heightened in the 
eyes of the nurses. "When will you be married?" 
I was asked a dozen times a day. I always said 
I didn't know, which surprised them very much. 
As soon as a Chinese girl is betrothed, her mar- 
riage month is set. Once I heard them whisper- 
ing among themselves. "Astonishing! Is it not 
strange? She does not know when she is to be 
married." 

But I didn't want to know. The world suited 
me to a T. I didn't want it changed one iota. 
Loving Edward seemed to make a great difference 



8o MY CHINESE DAYS 

in me. It seemed somehow to make me more a 
part of the rest of the world, even more a part of 
China, as if I had suddenly found a key to under- 
standing. Before I had only looked through a 
peephole at life ; now I was inside. 

One evening Edward came to take me driving in 
one of the small Chinese victorias. It was well 
along in June, and the days and nights were both 
warm. All our woolen things had been hung out 
on the second-story porch long ago to sun, before 
the willow fuzz began to fly, and then had been 
carefully put away in camphorwood or tin boxes 
for the summer. Even in the evenings we only 
needed a light silk scarf. The Chinese men had 
discarded all semblance of upper garments for the 
summer, and the women on the street wore trans- 
parent gauze skirts over their thin summer trousers. 
Punkahs and electric fans waved during meals, and 
at night we slept out on the upstairs porch on bam- 
boo couches without any covers. In the daytime 
we rested when work was over. Only at night could 
one enjoy motion. 

I never get over a feeling of opulence when I lean 
back in a victoria, no matter how shaky the vehicle 
or how shabby the driver. 

"Don't keep her out too late," warned Doctor 
Donnellon. "We have a hard operation to-morrow 
morning, and we must all be fresh for it." 

"We won't be long," said Edward. "We are 
going out along Soochow Creek and back by the 
Rubicon Road." 

The Rubicon is the last outlying ribbon of foreign 



THE WARM GRAVE 8i 

influence around Shanghai. Across it lie the path- 
less fields of China itself. 

On the shafts of the carriage hung two large, 
illumined, paper lanterns, shedding a fitful colored 
light on the ground at the horse's head. The streets 
were a mass of rickshas and people. Children, 
amply dressed in a red handkerchief, played by the 
roadside. At the doorways of the houses sat little 
family groups, the father mayhap with the youngest 
baby perched astride his shoulder. Here and there 
a man was playing the primitive violin of the people. 
Its wailing, plaintive notes hung like a subtle en- 
chantment on the air. We passed a boy blowing a 
flute, driving home to the stables a herd of unwieldy 
buffaloes. Their huge, humped, black silhouettes 
were unreal in the night. We turned down Myburgh 
Road and out on to the thoroughfare of Bubbling 
Well. There foreign motor cars mingled with the 
rickshas. A handsome Sikh policeman saluted me 
as we passed. 

"How do you know him?" asked Edward. 

"Oh ! I know half the policemen in town. First 
of all, they bring their wives to St. Margaret's for 
treatment, and secondly they bring in a lot of 
municipal cases. But this man is a special friend 
of mine. He thinks I saved the life of his wife." 

Edward smiled at me, and I felt a warm rush of 
happiness tingle through me. 

"I had such a queer sensation when he came to 
take her away. She was standing in the hospital 
court with her baby in her arms. They were both 
dressed in some gaudy color and wrapped up to the 



82 MY CHINESE DAYS 

eyes. The Sikh, very tall and imposing in his 
municipal uniform of blue serge, said something 
rapidly to the woman that I couldn't understand. 
She nodded her head. The next moment he was on 
the ground, kissing my feet. I felt humble and 
elated at the same moment. The homage woke up 
a primitive feeling of delight in power over people. 
I was rather scared to find how much I enjoyed it." 

Along the road, the houses stood wide open to the 
fragrant night air. We could look right in and see 
groups of men and women in white on the veran- 
dahs. Opposite the Burlington Hotel, a long row 
of plastered Chinese houses was overflowing with 
Chinese children. An eat-shop next door was 
doing a good business. Then we left the city behind 
us and drove out rapidly into the country. We 
passed through Zau-Ka-Doo, where the silk filatures 
were silent for the night, and came out beside Soo- 
chow Creek. At once the air blew cool and damp 
in our faces. The lights of the city and houses 
gone, the world seemed to grow in immensity and 
stretch away infinitely under the moon. I imagined 
it stretching away and away till it touched Russia 
and America, joining hands across the continent. 
Down the silent river the junks, with their tall, 
oblong sails, floated mysteriously. Now and then 
the creak of an oar came to our ears, or the harsh 
call of the ferryman. Willows grew along the bank, 
and a pale silver moon hung in the sky. 

"I'd like to go on and on along this road, Edward," 
I said. "I don't want to turn off from the Creek. 
The fields without the water are meaningless. I 



THE WARM GRAVE 83 

feel that if we could only go on, we would come to 
some secret. I've always had to turn back and 
go home. Some day I want to just go right on and 
never come back." 

"Some day you shall," he promised, "but not 
to-night. In spite of all the wisdom tucked away 
inside your head, I know a thing or two you haven't 
found out yet. Life has no secrets just around the 
corner. All the secrets of life are inside us." 

"No, it's not that kind of a surprise I want," I 
replied. "I want something to happen to me from 
the outside. I don't want to have to evolve it 
from my inner consciousness." 
j A carry coolie along the roadside passed us, 
going in the other direction, humming his strange 
two notes beneath his breath. It is a sound that 
always takes my breath away. 

"Never mind, dear," I said, "I'm satisfied." 

Junk after junk moved past us noiselessly. 
Phantoms they were, coming from the unknown, 
going to the unknown, all palpitating with life. 
Tree toads sang along the road, and their soft, 
throaty gurgle filled me with a strange unrest. One 
sleepless " Sau-Sau-Man-Hau " bird cried out across 
the plains like the sudden night call of a loon. We 
came to the bend in the road where it leaves the 
Creek and turns back towards Shanghai through 
the fields. This road is a small, winding road, sup- 
posed to be kept in repair by the municipal council. 
A run of water, edged with steep banks, borders 
one side. Across that run is China, un-foreignized, 
eternal, just as it was centuries ago. I remember, 



84 MY CHINESE DAYS 

when I was little, going to the circus in Madison 
Square Garden and seeing a man ride two horses 
at once. He stood with a foot on each and galloped. 
When I wanted to think of something thrilling, I 
remembered that ride. Missionaries in China are 
like that, one foot in the twentieth century and one 
in the ages B.C. Only that little run of clear water 
separated the two. And we on our side that night 
looked back to the past and caught our breaths in 
wonder. 

Quite a lot of people were going along the road, 
both men and women, and of course children. They 
chattered and gesticulated. Their lanterns of red 
and yellow, hung on the ends of slender, bamboo 
canes, bobbed up and down as they walked. A few 
were well dressed, but for the most part they were 
of the coolie class and clad in the blue clothes of 
the workers. 

"I wonder where they are all going?" 

"Ask the driver," suggested Edward. "I am 
curious too." 

"Why for all these many people," I said to the 
driver in pidgin. 

"Me no savvy," he answered. 

"Ask, ask, find out," I ordered. 

He called out to a tall man hurrying by, who 
answered in quick jargon, unintelligible to me. The 
driver twisted around on his seat to answer with 
evident excitement. "One father, he die. Belong 
one very good man. Son, good man too. To-night, 
he warm his father's grave." 

"What?" I cried, i 



THE WARM GRAVE 85 

"Missey come look see," he answered. 

We followed the crowds about a mile down the 
road. They then crossed the run on a bridge of 
flat stepping-stones and vanished into the silvery 
darkness of the field beyond. The coachman turned 
around eagerly. "Missey come too?" he said. 

At first Edward wouldn't go. He said he was 
afraid for me, though why he need be afraid for 
me, I don't know, when I am never afraid for 
myself. Men are incomprehensible creatures ! For 
a while I really thought he wouldn't let me go. I 
didn't want to quarrel, but neither did I want to 
sit there in that carriage and not see what was 
going on, on the other side. My old feelings of 
rebellion began to perk their heads up, but they 
weren't needed. While our carriage waited at the 
roadside, we saw a procession of lanterns coming 
down behind us. When they drew near, we saw 
that they were a company of priests in long gray 
robes, carrying drums and short sticks which 
they struck together like castanets. One by one 
the priests crossed the little run on the century- 
old slabs of stone, then they too vanished into 
the silvery mistiness of the field beyond. But 
now the meadow was not silent. It vibrated to 
the rhythmic throb of the drums and the stick- 
like castanets. 

The driver wriggled about on his seat. "Missey 
no come?" he inquired. "Never mind. Can do, 
Missey, Master, come look see." 

He jumped down from the box, and I followed 
suit. By this time, I think that Edward's natural 



S6 MY CHINESE DAYS 

curiosity had overcome his scruples. Without a 
word of objection he followed us. 

I climbed down the steep bank to the water's 
edge and stepped out, across, on the flat stones. 
They were solid as the very earth itself, Druid- 
like and ancient. Across them countless farmers 
and country folk had crossed the Rubicon into 
Civilization. I tried to put myself into their minds, 
to grasp the wonder and daring of thus rashly 
venturing out of the snug past into the wild wonder 
of the present. I tried and I failed. My own point 
of view rushed back upon me. Here was I, a 
modern as I liked to think, stepping back into the 
untold ages of antiquity. After all it was as 
wonderful as their stepping out. And one thing 
I had gained, in that one particular I was ahead — 
I was quivering with consciousness. O ! I don't 
mean of myself, but of the world. I suppose a lark 
mounts and sings from an inner, sublime instinct, 
but if a man were thus to mount and sing, it would 
be with an ecstasy of joy. I felt that these silent, 
shadowy folk were as primitive as the birds of the air. 

I crossed the little stream and went up the opposite 
bank by a narrow footpath into the rice fields beyond. 
As soon as we had gained the level of the field, we 
saw the people like a dense shadow near a circle of 
cypress trees at the farther end of the meadow. The 
field was thickly studded with grave mounds, little, 
lonely ones of babies and family groups of twos and 
threes. "Tsing Ming" was but lately past, and 
the tops of the graves were bare of grass. At 
"Tsing Ming" the families go to the graves of their 



THE WARM GRAVE 87 

ancestors and pull off all the grass that has grown 
during the past year, leaving only a little tuft on 
the top, so that the grave shall look fresh. On the 
peak of the grave thus made bald, the offerings of 
food and paper money are placed. The group of 
cypresses towards which we were making our way 
surrounded a pretentious family burying mound. 

"Makee quick," urged the coachman. "Want- 
chee look see." 

He broke into a soft run, and I hurried after him. 

The cypresses grew up straight and slender around 
a group of three mounds. The people were clustered 
close around the edge of the enclosure. The priests 
were grouped at one end. A fresh grave was just 
dug. The earth lay piled up at one side in a moist 
brown heap. Two coolies, still sweating and wiping 
their eyes, stood at one side beside their shovels. 
We joined the crowd unnoticed ; the priests were 
already chanting. Out on the misty, silvery quiet- 
ness of the night floated their ancient incantation, 
the prayer for a blessing for the dead. The lighted 
lanterns glowed in splashes of red and yellow light. 
With intense interest the crowd watched the priests. 
Heathen and ancient as the human race itself was 
this prayer for the dead. And if Our Lord has said 
that not one sparrow falls to the ground without His 
compassion, so must His love flow out over this 
heathen grave. I ceased to feel alien and strange, a 
spectator ; rather I felt I was a part of the mourning 
crowd. 

Little rustlings of the night wind crept through 
the knee-high rice stalks. The clouds seemed to 



88 MY CHINESE DAYS 

lean close and whisper as they rushed across the 
moon, now throwing the scene into sudden light, and 
now hiding it in dusky gloom. The priests chanted, 
and the acolytes beat their drums and wooden 
sticks. The sound seemed to be arriving at a 
frenzied climax. 

Then I suddenly saw that all eyes were directed 
toward a young man who stood a little before the 
rest at the very edge of the grave. He wore the 
unbleached sackcloth of a first mourner. An old 
woman stood near him, holding a small child in her 
arms. 

The music came to an end, and the high priest 
said a few words. I didn't catch their meaning, but 
a thrill ran through me, as the tones of his voice 
vibrated commandingly over the company. The 
moon rushed behind a thick cloud. Some of the 
lanterns had burnt out, only two or three still 
glowed through their fragile paper frames. A 
weird, ominous stillness fell on the group. I too 
held my breath, and a sudden terror and horror 
filled me. I put out my hand and caught Edward's. 
His fingers were warm and felt comforting to my 
cold ones. . 

The young man whom everybody was watching 
suddenly knelt on the ground before the priests 
and struck his head against the earth thrice. I 
had no idea of what was to follow. When he rose 
he turned toward the open grave and jumped 
swiftly into its depths. A shuddering sigh, almost 
a stifled laugh, swept through the crowd. The 
chanting of the priests broke out again. The 



THE WARM GRAVE 89 

people began to stir about, as if their paralyzed 
limbs had suddenly come to life. Here and there 
one lighted a new candle in his lantern. A few 
stragglers started off back across the fields. The 
priests wound three times around the grave with its 
living human occupant, then off across the zigzag 
path through the rice field. Most of the people 
followed. The woman carrying the baby and an 
amah nurse or two accompanying her, still lingered. 
The voices of the throng which had crossed back 
over the Rubicon to the outskirts of the foreign 
settlement floated out clearly on the night air. 
The woman leaned over the edge of the grave. 

"Are you all right," she called. "Is it cold in 
the grave?" 

"It's very cold. I feel the chill of death creeping 
over my bones. However, it is of no importance. 
I will warm the grave for my father's body. He shall 
never feel the chill of death. I will warm it with my 
warm blood. Go home, Great Mother, and sleep 
till dawn. I will be waiting for your coming with 
the sunshine in the morning. Lift up my son, my 
first-born, that he may see the filialness of his 
father and remember." 

The voice from the grave ceased. The woman 
at the edge of the grave lifted up the child and held 
it out over the hole in the earth. Its baby eyes 
wandered away and up to the pretty moonshine 
above its head. It refused to look down into the 
grave. 

"Till to-morrow, with the sun," said the voice of 
the Filial Son. At last the mother and her little 



Qo MY CHINESE DAYS 

cortege filed away across the fields. We stood alone 
under the shade of the cypresses. It seemed too 
terrible for every one to go away to warm beds and 
hot tea and leave that young man out there in the 
silent rice field, shut in by the high walls of the 
freshly dug grave, all alone in the darkness. 

"Come," said the driver, tugging at my sleeve. 
"Missey must come away. It no belong good 
custom for any one to stay by the warm grave. 
It no belong proper." 

"But suppose something should happen to him," 
I cried. 

The coachman shrugged his shoulders. "What 
thing can happen?" he asked in scorn. "No man 
touchee he. He belong one piecee very holy son. 
Never mind ! Come away. No can stay by warm 
grave. The devils can catch." 

"What devils," I asked. 

"Oh, any devils, bad devils ! No likee son warm 
grave. Go round and round on the outside to 
catch son if he get up too soon. Hear." 

The man held up his hand and poised his head to 
listen. The night wind was rising and moaning 
through the stiff branches of the cypresses. 

" I hear the devils already," he stammered. 
" Missey makee quick. Come away." 

He caught at my dress and pulled me along the path. 

"It's useless to stay, Wilhelmina," said Edward. 
"It's dangerous to interfere with the native customs. 
Besides, there is no real danger to the fellow, not 
any more than to any soldier who sleeps on the 
ground all night." 



THE WARM GRAVE 91 

Edward caught my hand and hurried me along, 
back to civilization, through the twisting path in 
the rice fields, over the brook by the Druid stones 
and into our bit of modernity, the diminutive 
victoria. 

** Drive back chop chop," thundered Edward. 
"It will be midnight before we get back, and it will 
create a scandal in the mission." 

His orders were unnecessary to the Chinese 
coachman. At full gallop we tore down the river 
road, nor did he slacken his pace till we were well 
within the lights of the settlement. As I lay in 
my warm, white-sheeted bed that night, I couldn't 
sleep. My thoughts ran away with me. I seemed 
to float out of myself and stream out over the little 
run at the Rubicon, over the rice field, and pause 
under the black wings of the cypress trees. The 
moon shadows flickered over the open grave where 
the son lay warming the cold earth for the bones of 
his father. The baffled devils whispered in the 
cypress needles, and from the edge of the stream 
came the sleepy croak of the tree toads. I wondered 
was He listening too? And was it very cold in the 
grave ? So dreaming, I fell asleep at last. 



X 

THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 

THE rebellion was in full sway. For three 
days the rebels had been bombarding the 
arsenal. All our Christians from The 
Native City and all the patients that were too sick 
to go home from the West Gate Hospital had crowded 
into our compound. Mattresses were hauled down 
from the attic and stretched on the floor between the 
beds. Families brought their bedding and spread 
it in the yard and slept. Children slept two by 
two, feet to feet in the cribs. All our dearly beloved 
law and order vanished. We simply took in every- 
body we could, and in the midst of it tried to do the 
most needed medical work. But everybody was 
demoralized. In the midst of a dressing, the nurses 
would pause to listen to the patter of distant shots. 
Now and then the very earth seemed to tremble. 
Doctor Donnellon and I went about among the 
crowds, saying continually, "Do not fear; do not 
fear." I believe if we had been suddenly wakened 
from our sleep we would automatically have said, 
"Do not fear." Fortunately the weather was 
pleasant. We heard that a bullet had gone right 
through the wall above the head of the Doctor 
at West Gate. It whizzed across the room 



THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 93 

and buried itself in the opposite wall. ''Loo-I- 
Sung", as the Chinese call her, was in danger, and 
our little band of refugees was tormented with fear 
for her. She refused to leave the hospital, as there 
were still a few patients too sick to be moved. After 
it was all over I dined with her in the room still 
riddled with bullet holes. But here at St. Margaret's 
we were safe. A wild shot or two flew overhead, but 
none fell in our compound. 

One evening — it was the third day of the bom- 
bardment — we were sitting on the verandah, listen- 
ing to the far-off patter of bullets, when the telephone 
rang shrilly. Edward rose to answer it. 

"It is no use your going," I said. "It's sure to 
be some one asking about a patient, and I might as 
well go at once." 

"Very well," said Edward. 

It was Miss Judson at the Door of Hope. She 
wanted some one to go down to the Slave Refuge at 
Kaung Wan to relieve Miss Fairchild, who had come 
down with dysentery. The orphanage for the 
younger girls was at Kaung Wan near the Woosung 
forts. Up till now all the fighting had been about 
the Arsenal at the west of the settlement. Miss 
Judson thought the children would be perfectly 
safe with their Chinese teachers, but she didn't 
like ,to feel there was no one in charge in such 
uncertain times. Did I think any one could be 
spared ? 

"I can come," I answered. "I was supposed to 
go away on a vacation, but no one can get away just 
now. We aren't able to do any proper medical 



94 MY CHINESE DAYS 

work, but spend our time dosing out sedatives. 
I'll love to come." 

So it was arranged, and I went down the next 
day to take charge. The building is a square, 
barrack-like affair of gray brick, standing alone 
in a field of grave mounds. To the south lies the 
stream of the Whangpoo, meeting at right angles 
the vast yellow flood of the YangTse. On the fork 
of land between the two rivers stand the Woosung 
forts. All the shipping to and from Shanghai sails 
up the Woosung. The new railroad from Shanghai 
to the Point runs between the house and the shore. 
Inland the ground stretches towards the horizon in 
billowing, grave-humped fields almost concealing 
the groups of bamboo houses and the scattered 
villages. 

I soon began to feel at home with all the little waifs. 
They were as clean as a new day and obedient and 
well behaved. When they found I liked to play 
games when lessons were over, they took to me at 
once. I had no real duties. The Chinese teachers 
took care of all the regular lessons. I looked over 
their scalps and eyes and ears while I had opportunity 
and sat at the long table with them at meal times. 
And at night I made rounds through the bare, 
open-windowed rooms, seeing that each little tot 
was in her appointed cot of the double-decker tiers. 
Sometimes we played hide and seek around the 
grave mounds, and sometimes we stood at the wide 
curtainless windows and watched the sails on the 
river. I'd tell them stories about each boat that 
went by, about the gray warships, or the ancient 



"THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN .95 

junks with their yellow eyes at the prow and their 
tattered sails of matting. 

The days passed swiftly. Edward came down 
daily. Miss Fairchild improved steadily, and I 
was soon expecting to return to the hospital. Then 
came the sudden shifting of the seat of warfare 
from the Arsenal, at the southwest of the settlement, 
to the Woosung forts at the north. I remember that 
morning perfectly. It was August thirteen, and I 
stood at the head of the long breakfast table and 
said Grace with no thought in my head but of the 
day's usual routine. With demure orderliness the 
little girls, all under twelve, seated themselves on 
their stools and began their bowls of rice. The 
first few moments were always devoted in silence to 
the rite of eating, but as the bowls were replenished 
for the second time, the children began their eager 
talk. On either side of me sat my two best teachers. 
As the conversation broke out, one of them leaned 
towards me and spoke in low tones. 

''Doctor Wilhelmina," she said, "the boy from 
my father's house came early this morning with a 
letter from my father, urging me to return at once 
to Shanghai. He writes that the city is full of 
rumors of an attack on the forts. He fears for my 
safety." 

I was filled with consternation. "You must go, 
Dong lung," I said. "It is only right that any one 
who can should go. I will dismiss all the teachers 
and servants this morning. I don't want any one 
to take any risks. As for myself, I don't believe 
there is any real danger. Miss Judson would have 



96 MY CHINESE DAYS 

told us if there were, or Mr. Stevens would have 
come out." 

"Will you go? Will the children go?" asked 
Dong lung. 

"If there is real danger, of course we will go," I 
answered. "But we must not let ourselves be 
driven away by a foolish panic. It is hard to find a 
home at a moment's notice for one hundred and 
eighty little girls." 

"There are the refuge camps," suggested Dong 
lung. "Father says that bread and soup is being 
distributed free every morning in the marketplaces 
in Shanghai." 

"That would never do," I cried aghast. "I'm 
really not worried, for Miss Judson will let me know 
in time if we have to leave." 

"If you stay, then I will," answered Dong lung. 
She started to her feet impetuously. 

"I'd like to keep you," I said. "You are a great 
help to me, but since your father has sent for you, 
you must go." 

Dong lung shook her head. "I'm not a slave 
any more," she asserted. "I earn my own living. 
My duty is the same as yours. You cannot make 
me a coward. I will not run away." 

She looked so very slim and boyish and determined 
as she drew herself up in her trousers and jacket that 
I almost yielded. 

"Where is the boy?" I asked. 

"He is waiting in the kitchen," Dong lung 
replied. 

"Send him to me in my office," I said. 



THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 97 

Dong lung went to give my message, and I 
walked across the hall into the tiny, white cubbyhole 
which was Miss Fairchild's office. On the wall hung 
a picture of Christ blessing little children. One big 
desk stood across the wall opposite the door. There 
were two chairs, one for Miss Fairchild and one for 
a visitor. Dong lung came in, followed by a boy 
in the long, white, regulation upper garment of a 
Chinese house servant. Breaking into rapid Chinese, 
he began his story. I , caught his meaning well 
enough, but I wanted to be sure. 

"What does he say?" I asked Dong lung. 

"He says," she answered, "that orders have been 
issued to close the river to all incoming and out- 
going craft, that all the government war boats are 
steaming towards the point, and that the bombard- 
ment will begin at 2 p.m. The rebels are expecting 
reinforcements by evening." 

If true, that was bad news indeed, but we had 
been fed by so many unreliable rumors that I did 
not let myself worry too much. I knew that Miss 
Judson and Edward would let me know in time, if 
anything really dangerous threatened. Still I dis- 
missed all the paid teachers and servants and sent 
them home till further notice. There was a good 
deal of excitement among the children, for though I 
forbade any one explaining the cause of the sudden 
holiday, still the news leaked out. The servants 
and teachers rushed about wildly, packing up their 
belongings and taking tearful farewells. In an 
incredibly short time the little cavalcade was ready 
to start for the station a quarter of a mile distant. 



98 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Dong lung was the last to leave. She clung to my 
arm weeping. "Come too," she urged. "You 
don't know Chinese soldiers. First they fire the 
place, then they loot. Pretty women first." 

The girl clung to me in real terror. Almost she 
shook my resolution. Suppose the news were really 
authentic this time. Miss Judson and Edward 
would not have time to reach us before the bombard- 
ment began, and the Refuge was in the direct firing 
line. If there hadn't been quite so many children, I 
believe I would have gone, but No ! It was im- 
possible. My trust in the others reasserted itself. I 
knew they would not forget us. Probably at this 
very moment they were perfecting a plan for our 
benefit. While I hesitated, the 'phone rang. It was 
Miss Judson herself. 

Dong lung paused in the doorway to hear her 
message. It was short but reassuring. "It's all 
right," I said, feeling that a weight had been lifted 
off my heart. "The fighting is not to begin till 
to-morrow afternoon, and in the morning Miss 
Judson is bringing out a special train to take all the 
children away to West Gate, which is now the safest 
place." 

"Then I shall stay too," said Dong lung. 

"No, indeed," I said. "Your father has sent 
for you and go you must." 

I gave her a little shove and shut the door behind 
her. I had a pang of loneliness after they all left, 
and I wondered why Edward had not come down to 
stay with us. It seemed, if there ever were a fitting 
time to have a man in the house, this was it. I 



THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 99 

felt I belonged with the little outcasts, the poor 
little tots who had been beaten and tortured and 
starved little slaves. We were all forgotten and un- 
wanted. It is a horrible feeling. Fortunately for 
me, the children would not let me alone. They 
clustered around me, wanting to know what it all 
meant. A few of the older ones stood quiet and 
solemn. They were all quite demoralized. Of 
course I could not let that go on. I divided them 
up into their usual classes and called each older 
girl by the name of a departed teacher. Only give 
a Chinese a part to play, and you have given her 
an absorbing interest. Real dramatic ability seems 
to lie around loose anywhere among them. The 
veriest beggar off the streets can act a part. The 
accustomed routine calmed the children, and by 
afternoon no traces of unusual excitement were to 
be seen. Only, when playtime came, I kept them 
indoors, and we went upstairs to the attic. I stood 
at the window and watched the Whangpoo River. 
It looked very clear and gray, winding between its 
willow-fringed banks. On the opposite shore the 
low houses of Pootung were half hidden in trees. 
Around the forts, in a menacing semicircle, clustered 
a score or more Chinese men-of-war. Ultra-modern, 
painted in hungry gray, or medieval survivors with 
high, curling poops and painted yellow eyes on the 
bows, the vessels loomed sinister through the 
gathering dusk. Beyond their lines in the river lay 
three or four foreign gunboats, and at the mouth of 
the YangTse was a foreign liner waiting to come up 
to Shanghai. So near they seemed, as if I could 



loo MY CHINESE DAYS 

put out my hand and touch them. They were 
soundless, motionless ; they lay like phantoms on 
the water. The low bamboo houses along the 
bank, the willows bending in the wind, a wheel- 
barrow trundled along in blissful leisure — these 
were the real things, not tliose inconceivable shapes 
conjured up by some e\'il imagination. Yet over 
the forts, in flaunting arrogance, floated the flag 
of the rebels. I stood at the window a long time 
watching those motionless monsters. 

Night fell. I put the children to bed in their long 
rows of double-decker cots. Then I made the 
rounds of the Refuge, bolting ^^^ndows and barring 
doors. At last I had done ever>'thing I could think 
of. I went to my room and undressed for bed, but 
I couldn't sleep. It was no use lying staring at tlie 
ceiling, so I got up and put on a wrapper and went 
out on to the verandah outside my window. The 
stars were shining peacefully. One, more brilliant 
tlian the rest, cast a glittering drop of gold reflection 
in the water. The men-of-war were hardly visible ; 
not a light shone on them. The night was very still, 
not a cricket chirped, not a leaf stirred. 

I almost went to sleep in my long chair on the 
porch. Indeed, I must have dozed ofif, for I was 
awakened by a red flash of light and a deafening 
noise. The gunboats had opened fire on tlie forts. 
Siau-Noen, the baby of the institution, began to 
crs'. I picked her up and held her in my arms. A 
few of the children stirred and cried out in their 
sleep, but most of tliem slept through the bombard- 
ment. For an hour or more the boats kept up an 



THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN loi 

active bombardment of the fort. A pallid search- 
light played incessantly on its walls. In its light I 
could see the holes torn through the masonry. 
Once, when the wind veered, I fancied I heard the 
cries of men in pain. Then the firing ceased, and 
again the night was starred in silver peace. The 
tall grasses on the conical grave mounds waved 
gently, a cricket chirped, Siau-Noen slept soundly in 
my arms. I sat on the verandah till dawn. I 
watched the first, utterly forlorn, gray light that 
streaked the sky, watched till it quivered in a vibrat- 
ing purple and suddenly burst into rose and yellow. 
The crows began to fly back to the fields behind 
Shanghai for their day's feeding. I always loved 
to watch them go, soaring past in twos and threes, 
with an occasional lazy straggler by himself. Often, 
when I had come in early from a night case, I had 
seen them winging their way countryward across the 
red dawn. At evening they came back to the shelter 
of the city to roost. When I saw the crows, I was 
reassured. Day had come, and we were safe. Soon 
Miss Judson and Edward would appear, and my 
vigil would be over. Lifting the baby in my arms, 
I went in and put her down in her crib. Then I flung 
myself across the bed and went to sleep at once. 

Suddenly some one was shaking me and calling 
to me in terror. "Wake up, wake up. A bullet 
has come through the dining-room window." 

Another child burst into the room, crying, "Three 
bullets have come into the eating room." 

"One fell into my bowl of rice," sobbed Ah-Me, 
casting herself into my lap. 



I02 MY CHINESE DAYS 

The room was rapidly filling with frightened, 
crying children. 

"My finger is hurt," wailed one of the smaller 
youngsters, pushing her way through to me, cupping 
her bleeding finger in the palm of her other hand. 

" May-Li has fainted on the floor in the hall," some 
one announced. 

"They are shooting at us from behind the grave 
mounds," said A-Doo, the first arrival. "Lots of 
men." 

I ran to one of the back windows. It was as the 
children had announced. Little villainous puffs of 
pale smoke floated out continually from behind the 
grave mounds which made a series of natural 
breastworks and effectually hid the assailants. 

"Why?" I asked of myself. The children were 
crowding about me again, some of them hysterical 
and many crying. "Don't be scared," I said. 
"See, I'm not scared at all. We'll just pretend they 
aren't there at all, and sing our favorite hymn." 

I began the old, old song, "There is a happy land 
far, far away." The words of it were the first 
Chinese words I had learned and now came as easily 
to my tongue as the English. The children joined 
me, at first falteringly but soon with more force 
and volume. Still singing, I marched off to the 
kitchen at the river side of the house. The rhythm 
of the tune and the shuffling of the children's feet 
drowned the ominous patter of the bullets on the 
roof. I made them sit down in a kindergarten circle 
in the kitchen and sing songs. The children grew 
quieter. They began some of their favorite games. 



THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 103 

Crash ! A shell burst through the roof and 
splintered the chairs and tables in the dining room. 
A jagged crack yawned in the wall between. The 
children screamed with terror. 

For a moment, I was paralyzed. We were caught 
like rats in a trap, to be shot to death before help 
could arrive. We were all alone ! Miles from 
Shanghai ! Separated from our friends ! The children 
huddled about me, and I felt their little hands, cold 
with fright, clinging to me. Then I remembered 
the telephone. I called the older girls to me and 
tried to instill into them some courage. An5Avay 
I made them all stop screaming and started them 
again on "There is a happy land." I told them to 
see how many verses they could sing before I got 
back from the telephone. Then I dashed down the 
hall. The telephone was in the vestibule on the 
land side of the house. Everywhere were signs of 
the effectiveness of the rebels' fire in broken windows 
and charred splinters. I had to wait a little, while 
Central got Miss Judson. I listened to the patter of 
the bullets against the walls and roof of the building. 
The children's voices came to me faintly through 
the closed doors. Miss Judson's voice was the most 
welcome sound on earth. 

"We are being fired on. Miss Judson," I said. 
"The rebels, hundreds of them, crouch behind the 
grave mounds. Yes, several children are hurt 
slightly. One shell burst in the dining room. No 
one is killed. There must be some mistake. 
Perhaps they think the house is a barracks. You'll 
be down soon? I don't see how you can stop it, 



I04 MY CHINESE DAYS 

but I know you will. We are all right. Don't 
worry. Good-by." 

Reluctantly, I hung up the receiver. I wanted 
to keep her talking to me ; I felt more courageous 
while she was talking. She had promised to organize 
a relief party immediately and come down in a 
special train for the children. Miss Judson hadn't 
mentioned Edward, and I had half a mind to call 
him up, but I didn't. I knew it would worry him 
so. He might do something rash. I began cal- 
culating how soon they would be here. Calculate 
as. I would, allowing for no delay, they couldn't 
reach Kaung Wan under two hours. 

Two hours ! 

A bullet tore through the glass of the vestibule 
and grazed my cheek. It stung a little, and a few 
drops of blood fell on my hand. The hideous cry 
of a shell shrieked overhead. It fell into the yard 
beyond, casting up a cascade of dirt. How fantastic 
it was ! An army of men storming a home for little 
children ! 

My mind seized upon the idea that there must be 
some mistake, that the rebels did not know. Surely 
if they knew, they would stop. In that moment of 
terror but one solution presented itself to me, quite 
simple, as most solutions are. It was merely to 
open the door and walk out and show myself a 
couple of times. When the rebels knew that a 
foreign woman lived in the house, surely they would 
stop firing. And then the children and I would be 
saved. I saw it with startling clearness. Just 
open the door and walk out! But suppose the 



THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 105 

rebels didn't stop firing? Suppose they dashed 
forward and surrounded me. With ghastly vivid- 
ness, I remembered the tales of the Boxer atrocities, 
of other women tortured in the slaying. A panic 
swept over me. I was deathly afraid, afraid for 
, myself and for the children. I knew the rescue 
party would be too late ; if we were to be saved we 
had to be saved now. I was in a blue funk. I 
thought of the Chinese men, of their horrible, 
bloody hands and their imperturbable, grinning 
eyes. They were inhuman ; they had no respect 
for women. If they touched me I must die, and if 
I died the children would be left alone. The fate of 
these little rescued slave girls would be a thousand 
times worse than before their rescue. Chinese 
soldiers spear babies on the ends of their bayonets. 

I believed the rebels thought troops of the Republic 
were hidden within, waiting the opportune moment 
to sally forth and repulse the attack. If they knew 
there were only children, girl children, at their 
mercy, would they stay their hands, or would they 
rush the building and begin their malignant pillage 
and loot ? 

A deadly weakness overcame me. I thought I 
was dying. The one remaining thing to do my 
body refused to do. I could not open that door 
and walk out in the face of the raining bullets. It 
would be foolhardy, reckless. And yet, therein lay 
the only chance of safety for the children, the one 
last slim chance for life. I was trembling in a 
very passion of terror. 

Another shell burst overhead. In a fresh access 



io6 MY CHINESE DAYS 

of fear, the children screamed aloud. The end 
grew inevitable. 

A quiet, emotionless calm fell on me. I loosened 
the fastenings of my white duck skirt and slipped it 
off, standing in a white petticoat. I unbolted the 
heavily barred door and stepped out on the terrace, 
waving my white skirt above my head. I was like 
a person in a trance, without a quiver of fright. 
Once, twice, three times I paraded the length of the 
terrace, waving my white flag of truce. The bullets 
kicked up the ground about me and struck little 
bits of plaster and stone from the walls. I fancied I 
felt the heat of their flying. 

A dreadful sickness began to creep over me. The 
fields reeled and grew black. The grave mounds 
became tall peaks, spitting fire. The bullets flew 
faster than ever. I groped for the door, found it, 
pulled it to behind me, and slid to the floor in a 
little heap against it. I think I must have fainted. 
I seemed to live a long time with the raining of 
bullets echoing through my brain. 

A-doo awoke me. "They have stopped," she 
cried. "They have stopped for almost a half an 
hour. We were worried about you, so I came out to 
find you." 

I just put my arms around her and cried. "Thank 
God, we are saved." 

"How did God save us?" asked A-doo. 

A flood of happiness rushed over me. God had 
used me to save them ; He had given me a chance to 
help. I wasn't tired any more, I felt as gay and 
light-hearted as a lark. 



THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 107 

"Let's get the noontime rice," I said. 

We had a gay time getting lunch. The children 
seemed to catch my good spirits. As for me, I was 
only too thankful that I had been given strength to 
rise to my chance. In the midst of the meal the 
rescue party surprised us. Finding the door open, 
they had come right in. I looked up to see Miss 
Judson, followed by the American consul and Doctor 
Richards, the head of the Red Cross, standing in 
the doorway. Over their heads I saw Edward. 
There was a look in his eyes I had never seen before, 
a look of deadly anxiety. 

" For the last two hours I have lived In a purgatory 
of expectation," said Miss Judson. "I expected to 
find the house in flames, half the children burned to 
death, and the other half slain, while you, my dear, I 
never expected to find at all. And here you are 
eating tifhn as quietly as if Shanghai were stormed 
daily." 

"How did you manage to get here so soon," I 
asked. 

"I 'phoned the consul at once. He got official 
permission to use the Red Cross flag of truce and 
bring away the children. There is a special train 
waiting at the station to take them all back 
to Shanghai. When we reached Kaung Wan, it 
was as peaceful as a graveyard." 

"It might very well have been a graveyard," said 
the consul, "but for Doctor Wilhelmina's presence 
of mind and bravery." 

But I looked past him to Edward for my approval. 
The light I saw shining in his eyes was my reward. 



io8 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Each child made a bundle of its night clothes, and 
we marched them down to the train, two by two. 
On either side were drawn up the ranks of the soldiers, 
rebels and government troops facing each other, and 
as through the stemmed-back waters of the Red 
Sea, the little children of the Lord walked in safety. 
As the train pulled out of the station, the deadly pop- 
ping of the bullets began again ! 



XI 

THE WALLED CITY 

EDWARD insisted that I accept an invitation 
that came for me from Soochow a few days 
later. Doctor Donnellon also wanted me to 
go, and it was my regular vacation time. Around 
Shanghai the government troops were victorious, 
and the panic was subsiding. One by one the 
refugee families returned to the Native City, and 
the hospital began to take on its usual appearance 
of order and quiet. In the afternoons after tea it 
became a fad to ride out to the Arsenal and pick up 
spent bullets for souvenirs. Miss Chase at Jessfield 
had two tall conical shells on the mantelpiece which 
she had picked up after a riot. Always when I 
visited her my eyes returned to those unexploded 
shells on the mantelpiece among the vases of blue 
and white plum blossoms. One of the men said 
they might explode some day. They were to me 
symbolic of life in China, so smooth and shiny and 
symmetrical, yet with a deadly power hidden 
within. Here and there through the settlement, 
broken windows and tiny round holes through the 
solid wood doorways testified to the excitement of 
the past weeks. But otherwise it seemed all over. 
Up the river however the rebels were drawing near 
Nankin. 



no MY CHINESE DAYS 

I hated to admit it, but I found myself rather 
shaky after the episode at Kaung Wan, and I was 
glad enough to accept my Soochow invitation. So 
far I had not been out of Shanghai ; I had been too 
busy. As the wide pathless fields of the country 
around Shanghai had caught my imagination, so 
my first sight of a walled city rising on the plain 
was to take my breath away. 

Edward came to the station to see me off. "I 
wish you were coming with me," I said. " I 
suddenly feel that I am going to be homesick." 

"For me?" asked Edward. "That is the first 
real sign of devotion on your part that I have seen." 

"I know you pine for the clinging vine," I said 
to tease him a little. 

"No, I don't," he said. "I only pine for you. 
Set a date and set it soon, and we'll go off and take 
a lovely honeymoon all over China, and you shall 
see all the world." 

"It sounds like a famous temptation," I said. 

"Well?" he questioned. 

"I can't decide right here, all in a moment," I 
said. 

"But I thought you had been deciding at your 
leisure all these last weeks. You said you were 
deciding. I want you." 

The guard came along, clanging to the carriage 
doors. The vendors of food, of eggs boiled in tea, 
of soggy dough balls, of bottled TanSan water, 
moved away reluctantly from the carriage windows 
and lost their interest in this particular trainload 
of people. 



THE WALLED CITY iii 

"Good-by," said Edward, holding my hand 
through the open window. " Don't forget I will want 
an answer when you come back." 

Off we went. It took only a few moments to leave 
Shanghai behind and to run out into those limitless 
plains that had so allured me all winter. It was 
unbelievable ! Like some dinosaur, huge and crush- 
ing, the train streaked through those fields of the 
past. On each side they stretched, quiet, waving 
with groves of fresh green bamboo grasses and the 
lush green of the new rice. The planting season was 
over, but here and there a few farmers were thigh 
deep in mud, transplanting. Lazy buffaloes browsed 
between the cultivated patches, guarded each by 
an urchin. The little boys lolled side-saddle on 
the wide backs of the huge animals and switched 
at the flies with a leaf-tipped branch. No fences, 
no walls, no dividing partitions of any kind were 
in sight. Around the clan-like family dwellings 
grew groves of bamboo and camphor and an oc- 
casional sycamore. Through the leaves I caught 
glimpses of the pointed, thatched roofs of the houses. 
The walls were of plaited bamboo branches. Of 
course there was no paint anywhere, and the houses 
seemed as much an integral part of the fields as the 
trees. Between the fields meandered little rills of 
muddy water. Across the fields I suddenly saw the 
slow, stately sails of junks. The hulls of the boats 
were invisible ; only the billowing brown sails moved 
along over the fields like cloud shadows. It was 
Soochow Creek off there, below its banks, winding 
down from the interior to the shore. "The In- 



112 MY CHINESE DAYS 

terior", "Up River", are magic words to the dweller 
in Shanghai. They represent the unknown and its 
magic. I took a Httle quick breath of deHght. Here 
was I too going to "the Interior", voyaging back 
fathoms deep into the unconscious past of the race. 

My friend, Doctor Grace, had been a college mate 
in Old Philadelphia. I had met her at the wharf 
when she came out, but I had not seen her since. She 
had said in her letter that she would meet me at the 
station if she could get through with clinic in time. 
If not, she would send the hospital boy. I had only 
a suit case for my short visit. 

The two hours passed like two minutes. With 
startling suddenness I saw the walled city rise on 
the horizon quite distinct and clear. It must have 
been visible several minutes before I saw it, because 
when I first turned, there it was, battlemented and 
hoary and romantic, like any Maxfield Parrish 
picture but a thousand times more real. Around it 
swept the wide brown moat, a real moat full of water 
and busy with rowboats and junks. The walls 
were great, high, massive structures. I saw people 
walking on them. Turrets marked the octagonal 
corners. Ramparts of green sod ran up to the edge 
of the walls, and tangled masses of vines with delicate 
white blossoms cascaded from the top. I couldn't 
take my eyes from the sight. 

At the station a crowd of coolies, sedan-chair 
carriers, and donkey men clustered around the exit, 
crying their fare to the city of Beautiful Soo, for the 
railroad station is outside the city and across the 
moat. I looked in vain for Doctor Grace. Not a 



THE WALLED CITY 113 

familiar face was in sight. I picked up my suit case 
and followed the rest of the passengers out of the exit 
gate. A tall coolie waved a piece of paper at every 
foreigner who passed him. I saw them looking at 
the paper and shaking their heads and passing on. I 
was curious about the paper. I walked in line so that 
I too should have a chance to look at the strange 
writing on the paper. The man before me had 
passed on. The coolie thrust the paper in my face. 
I gasped in sheer surprise, for on that mysterious 
paper that had been presented to each passenger who 
had descended from the train was my name. 

''For Doctor Wilhelmina," it said in Doctor 
Grace's familiar handwriting. What a primitive 
method, yet how simple and effective ! At my smile 
of recognition, the coolie nodded as if relieved, 
grabbed my suit case, and led me out of the station 
towards the stand of sedan chairs. Like waiting 
palanquins, they were ranged along the path with 
their groups of bearers, sometimes two by the poorer 
chairs, more usually three, and occasionally four, 
if the chair was meant for a fat man. Some were 
ancient affairs with closely drawn curtains ; some 
more modern, of wicker, with their gay curtains 
looped back. All around me was the bustle of 
people making bargains and stowing away their 
belongings. Just before me a portly Chinaman 
with several bundles done up in silk handkerchiefs 
got into a sedan chair. The little bearers stooped 
into position under the shafts. One gave a guttural 
grunt as signal to the man behind. With a sideways 
lurch they rose to their feet and swung off down the 



114 MY CHINESE DAYS 

path at a brisk walk. Fascinated, I was standing 
watching them. 

"Take care," shouted the hospital coolie at my 
elbow. I jumped aside to let a string of donkeys 
pass. Astride each little fellow dangled a China- 
man, their long legs quite able to help along by 
giving the ground a kick. ] 

Then I got into my first sedan chair. The hos- 
pital coolie tucked my suit case under my feet and 
then disappeared. I supposed he had given ample 
instructions to the bearers. With a simultaneous 
swoop, they crawled into the shafts which are closed 
with a crossbar before and behind. This bar rests 
on the back of their shoulders across the neck. They 
have rags that they roll into a bundle and stick 
under the crossbar, much as a violinist sticks a 
handkerchief under his chin. The shafts, that 
stick out before and behind the chair, are about four 
feet long. Swung aloft in the air like a veritable 
queen we started down the rough path. I had 
three bearers. They walked with a rhythmic jerky 
movement, and at every twenty paces or so one of 
the bearers gave a different grunt. The third man, 
who had been walking alongside mopping himself, 
eyes and chest and abdomen, would spring into 
place. There would be an infinitesimal halt while 
the exchange was made from shoulder to shoulder, 
and on we would go. Over it all streamed the 
yellow sunshine, and on my left rose the green 
ramparts and lichen gray walls of the ancient city. 

At the edge of the moat I was put down, and we 
all boarded a ferry. On the opposite side I got in 



THE WALLED CITY 115 

again. With a whoop they caught me up and off 
we went, up and up, through the side gate in the 
walls, and into the city itself. Never will I forget 
that first ride through Soochow. Perhaps the fact 
that I was alone, with no one to talk to, and that I 
was a stranger, going I knew not where, lent me a 
sense of adventure. However it came about, I felt 
transported into the land of Aladdin and the forty 
thieves. All the sights that met my eyes w^ere 
fantastic and bizarre, out of shape and proportion 
with modern life. Great jars of tea stood at the 
corners of the streets, out of which any one who 
thirsted dipped a cup of brown tea in a pale, sand- 
colored, wooden dipper, I watched the carry- coolies 
set down their burdens, wipe the sweat from out their 
eyes, and lift up a dripping dipperful of tea to their 
mouths. Each jar stood in a wooden stand under 
a bent roof, like the shelter one sometimes sees over 
old-fashioned gates. Each one was big enough to 
hide a man. 

The curtains of my chair were looped back, for 
was I not a bold, foreign woman who looked at the 
passers-by ! I saw hardly any women on the streets, 
— now and then a coolie woman carrying a kettle of 
boiling water which she had bought at the nearest 
cook-shop for a few cash, or an old hag sitting In a 
doorway. The streets were like the alleyways of 
Venice. At any moment I could put out my two 
hands and touch the houses on either side. The 
Soochow Creek entered the city and ran through the 
town in a network of canals. The beautiful arched 
bridges of China spanned the crossings at every 



ii6 MY CHINESE DAYS 

turn. Without warning, up we would go, over high 
flights of irregular steps. At the summit of the 
bridge I would look up and down the canal and see 
the houses built like a solid wall along its edge. 
Some of the streets were empty and deserted, and 
again we traversed the thoroughfares of the town. 
We went along the Street of the Weavers. In each 
low, open room I saw the looms on which were 
stretched wondrous fabrics of flowered brocade, 
palest pink and baby blue and bridal crimson. I 
wondered how they were kept so clean in such 
darkened houses. From the Street of the Weavers 
we turned into the Street of the Jade Cutters. Here 
the whirring sound of the wheels filled the air, and 
the cutters stood stooping over their ancient revolv- 
ing grindstones. We came out on the market square 
before a huge temple. The air smelt faintly of 
incense and the sound of temple bells hung over the 
place. 

On and on we went. A sense of unreality stole 
over me. We weren't going anywhere in particular, 
we were just going on and on, as I had always 
wanted to, seeing all the wonder of the whole world. 
I felt that this ancient, walled city contained every- 
thing in the world. 

After an hour and a half of this wild, silent carrying 
into the unknown, I began to feel that I was being 
carried off in earnest. I wasn't really scared, but I 
felt pleasantly thrilled. Should I presently have to 
call out to a chance passer-by to rescue me? Did 
these silent, jogging men know where they were 
going, or had they become hypnotized by the regular 



THE WALLED CITY 117 

motion? We were passing along an empty street. 
A wide stream of water ran at one side, and beyond 
it rose the walls of a house more pretentious than 
most. It was two stories high. Small grilled 
windows as big as a napkin overlooked the stream. 
A heavy wooden door studded with brass nails 
opened on to a steep flight of steps that led to the 
water's edge. The fringes of two black cypresses 
tipped the walls that ran down the side of the stream 
from the house. The water itself was sluggish, and 
a faint, iridescent green scum floated on its surface. 
Two or three helpless brown leaves were caught in 
this green mesh and lay listless and motionless. We 
were the only people in sight. A queer, dank smell 
pervaded the place. In the ooze between the house 
and the water, a large green toad with purple spots 
blinked its protruding eyes. 

"What man live this side?" I asked in Chinese. 

At the sound of my voice, the front bearer turned 
around in surprise. This threw the back bearer out 
of step, and they both stopped. They sat my chair 
down and began mopping their brows. The third 
bearer joined the one in front. 

"Ah! Teacher knows to speak Middle Kingdom 
speech," the man exclaimed in surprise. 

"A Httle, Httle," I said. "Who lives in that big 
house?" 

"A very rich man, oh Teacher, born before. But 
very sad. He has no sons. He is now old in years, 
already sixty and very venerable. He has four wives, 
but they all bear daughters. Only one year ago 
he married a young and beautiful wife. There was 



ii8 MY CHINESE DAYS 

great rejoicing in the whole house. She will soon 
bear a child. All year he and all his wives have 
prayed daily at the temple that the child may be a 
son. The Small Wife was carried out herself daily, 
so devout was she, but now she goes out no longer. 
They are all awaiting the great day." 

I looked at the silent, barred house with added 
interest. In what frame of mind was the young girl 
waiting within? A boy would mean the road to 
happiness. She would be the old man's favorite, 
the darling of his eyes. The Great First wife would 
no longer look down on her and lord it over her. But 
a girl meant despair. And as I looked at the house, 
a face appeared at one of the small, barred upper 
windows in the second story, at one of those windows 
no larger than a napkin. It was the face of a girl, 
and her eyes looked across at me, riding so brazenly, 
so jauntily through the streets of the strange city, 
in my outlandish clothes, with big feet. I wondered 
did she envy my freedom, or did she shrink from it ? 
Did she think I was a "foreign devil" with bold, 
forward manners, or did she think I was the fore- 
runner of a like liberty for the girls of China? I 
couldn't tell what she thought, but I felt her eyes 
calling to me. She held the bars that spanned the 
window in her fingers and pressed her face closer 
and closer against them. Her hands looked very 
slim and transparent, and her eyes held a look 
of appeal. 

I smiled at her and waved my hand. She looked 
at me a moment, then she too smiled. Some one 
appeared over her shoulder and drew her away. 



THE WALLED CITY 119 

"Good to look upon," said the bearers with a sly 
smile. "The first wife is fierce come death." 

They picked me up again and started off at the 
never-tiring dogtrot down the street. 

"This house, call itself how?" I asked. 

"The House of Li," they answered. 

In about fifteen minutes we reached the com- 
pound. The mission had bought land on both sides 
of the street long years ago and had planted rows of 
trees. Frame cottages that reminded me of New 
England stood on both sides. More pretentious 
brick buildings, the girls' school and the boys' 
college, stood in their own campuses. Sweet peas 
looked at me over the low fence, and a mass of 
petunias covefed the posts of the porch. A wonder- 
ful sense of peace and cleanliness and busy activity 
pervaded the place. I heard the clear voices of 
children at play and the thud of a falling ball. 

In the round stone gateway, the entrance to the 
hospital, which was built in Chinese style, stood 
Doctor Grace to receive me. 



XII 

' THE FISHING BIRDS 

I NEVER got over my feeling of enchantment 
in Soochow. It has always remained for me 
a place of marvels, yet the people who lived 
there took it all as a matter of course. The con- 
trast between the community of missionaries and 
the Chinese was sharper than in Shanghai. Each 
was more individual, more remote from the other. 
And to me the strangest thing about the situation 
was that the ultimate point of contact was not ma- 
terial but spiritual. Each separate race held fast to 
its own customs of eating and sleeping and dressing. 
The Chinese women saw our unbound feet, and, 
though some daring ones followed suit, the great 
mass of the women were satisfied with small feet, 
were still even proud of them. And we saw the 
freedom of the daintily trousered Chinese women, 
yet none of us adopted their custom, much as some 
of us wanted to. No, it was not on the plane of 
material things that the two races touched, it was on 
that utterly essential plane of things spiritual. The 
whole human race is forever groping with out- 
stretched hands towards the light, and these groping, 
unseeing hands touch in the darkness. That common 



THE FISHING BIRDS 121 

need and common desire was welding the two com- 
munities, the ancient Chinese of the Walled City 
and the Modern American missionaries, into one 
community. 

The mission had made itself a beautiful home at the 
extreme end of the town up against the inner moat. 
A lane paved with bricks, wider than the city streets, 
ran through the center of the compound. On one 
side was the university with a campus of its own for 
the boys, and on the other side was the girls' school 
and the woman's hospital and the nurses' training 
school. The trees in the lane had been planted long 
ago by those heroic, pioneer missionaries who came 
into the unknown when a voyage to China was like 
a voyage to another planet, and China seemed as 
far away from home as Mars. When I think of 
thera, they seem a different race from us. They 
were heroes and martyrs, while nowadays it's only 
a joy to be a missionary. 

That evening after supper Doctor Grace and I 
walked up and down the shady lane with our arms 
wrapped around each other's waists in the fashion 
of long ago. We talked of everything under the 
sun, of Philadelphia and all the girls we had known 
there. One had gone to Persia and had married a 
minister and had a daughter. Another had gone 
to Mexico, had married, and had had to leave the 
country during the revolutions. Still another was 
in India. I had recently met a nurse from the old 
hospital who had gone to Syria. Her surgery over- 
looked the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean. 
We talked them all over, marveling at the strange 



122 MY CHINESE DAYS 

destinies of people once so near together in daily 
work, now scattered to the end of the world. 

The city was very still. The water gates are 
closed at sundown, and the cumbrous, iron-toothed 
portcullis lowered into the water. We walked to 
the end of the lane and stood at the top of a flight of 
stone steps that led to a landing along the inner 
moat. A few wakeful boatmen were poling them- 
selves lazily past. At the landing two boats were 
anchored, and a couple of coolies were loading them 
with bulky bales of silk. Lanterns, striped in 
rings of red and white, hung on the boats. Behind 
us the lane was unlit and shadowy. Before us 
the sluggish water looked solid and stationary. 
Above us rose the wall, silhouetted like a battle- 
mented shadow against the starry sky. We could 
hardly see it, but we saw a space in the sky where 
there should have been stars, and where instead 
there was a regular turreted blackness. We were 
shut in for the night ! The water gates were doubly 
closed, and all the little postern gates in the walls 
were barred and guarded by sentries. 

Like the little woman who lost her petticoat, I 
hugged myself and said, "This is none of I !" 

From beyond the wall came the faint, distant 
sound of frogs. It was not really a sound ; rather 
it made the air vibrate as a shell vibrates when 
pressed against the ear. 

"It's time to go to bed," said Doctor Grace. 
"We all go to bed with the Chinese." 

"I hate to go in," I said, "and lose any of this 
enchantment." 



THE' FISHING BIRDS 123 

Doctor Grace laughed. "It won't evaporate 
overnight," she said. "It has been here for thou- 
sands and thousands of years. If ever anything in 
the history of mankind can be called permanent, 
this can." 

"But you can't tell!" I cried. "It has never 
before met western civilization. It's a solvent. All 
the old things crumble at its touch." 

"You are inconsistent," said Doctor Grace. "If 
you regret the past, why be a missionary? " 

"No, I am not," I answered. "I don't think 
China is perfect, nor do I think we are perfect. I 
have come to bring the love of Jesus Christ, not our 
habits. But don't let's argue. I'd rather just 
walk up and down under these old trees and feel 
myself a part of the antiquity." 

"You foolish child ! We'll go to bed." 

So we did. I hadn't slept outside my own room 
since coming to China. Once shut in alone, within 
four walls, I felt suddenly homesick. I wanted to 
be back at St. Margaret's ; I wanted to see Edward. 
At least, I wanted a letter from him to put under my 
pillow when I went to sleep. I crawled in under 
the canopy of the mosquito netting. Close outside 
my window grew some willows. It was so still that 
I heard their tiny leaves slithering against each 
other. And this desert-like quietness was in the 
midst of a city, of a walled city of teeming millions. 
If a baby cried, I felt the whole city would hear it. 
You feel that such profound quiet is the preparation 
for a stupendous event. 

Before I knew it, it was morning. I made rounds 



124 MY CHINESE DAYS 

with Doctor Grace and helped with clinic. In the 
afternoon she had prepared a treat for me. One of 
the men in the mission had a rowboat which he 
loaned to us. That again caught my breath away. 
Here I was in a rowboat, floating along on the inner 
moat of Soochow ! We went down the watersteps, 
Mr. Jackson held the boat for us, and we pushed off. 
Doctor Grace insisted upon rowing, for, she said, I 
was to sit in the stern and see the sights. We 
rowed down to the nearest Watergate. It was as 
thick as a house and the old blocks of stone were 
green with moss. Overhead I saw the black teeth 
of the raised portcullis hanging suspended above 
me. The air under the wide, thick gate was damp 
and cool as in a cellar. Near the gate, the inner 
moat was crowded with boats. As each long house- 
boat approached the entrance, the oarsman, standing 
at the stern, gave a guttural call, and the prow, 
seeming to move of itself, swung sharply into sight. 
Once through it and on the outer moat, we were 
plunged into another sphere of life. House boats 
drifted slowly by, a man at the stern oar, and children 
sprawling all over the narrow space. Little tots, 
dressed in red rags, climbed around the edges of the 
boat precariously. The next moment I saw one 
fall overboard. Before I had time to scream out, 
its mother jerked it up again by a rope which was 
tied around its middle. 

"Don't they mind it at all?" I asked. 

"Oh, no, " said Doctor Grace. "They must fall 
in a dozen times a day. Whenever I come out, I 
see mothers pulling up their dangling infants." 



THE FISHING BIRDS 125 

Away to the horizon stretched the fields, those 
limitless, pathless fields I had grown to love so well. 
To my utter delight we followed the streams right 
into them. I had never seen them from the winding 
waterways, and at once I knew this was the proper 
way to approach them. The little huts faced the 
water. Flights of crooked stone steps led down the 
banks to the edge of the water. Women stooped 
on the last step, washing the evening rice. We 
passed two lengths of the river which had been fenced 
off with anchored buoys and twisted lines of straw 
rope. The stretch of water inside had been sewn 
with grain. On and on we went. 

"Are we going anywhere in particular?" I asked. 
"Or don't you know where you are going ? " 

"Of course I do," said Doctor Grace. "We are 
going to see the fishing birds." 

"The what?" I asked. 

"The fishing birds," said Doctor Grace. "Wait 
till you see them. They belong to the husband of 
one of our patients. The women and children of 
the family come to the hospital. Only a month 
ago the last baby was born there." 

It was about five o'clock. The shadows were 
long and level. Wafts of the sweet fragrance of 
blossoming beans blew to us from the banks. I 
recognized the smell ; I knew the look of the plants 
— low, grey-green, with the blossoms close against 
the stems as if a host of purple and gray butterflies 
had cuddled against the bushes for the night. Birds 
were flying across the sky, swift crows, jet black, 
against the sunset, and the plumper "Sau Sau Man 



126 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Hau" (the Cook Cook Rice Well bird) that cries 
as it flies. 

We turned a bend in the stream and came upon 
the queerest sight I have ever seen in my life. 

The point of land where the streams divide rose 
steeply from the water. A house of wicker and 
bamboo, larger than most of the farmers' houses, 
stood in a grove of fresh green bamboo trees. The 
evening wind, rustling through their papery leaves, 
made a clear, soft, calling sound. Buffaloes and 
chickens roamed along the shore. On the lowest 
step of the water stairs stood a group of women and 
children watching a boat in the river. 

A long narrow boat swung mid-stream. At 
first glance it looked as if the boat were not floating 
on the water, but as if it were being held just over 
its surface by a flock of black, strong birds as large as 
eagles, which hovered on both sides of it and flapped 
their great black wings, screaming harshly. Two 
men stood in the boat, which was shaped like a long 
scooped-out canoe. The men were motionless and 
silent. The little group on the shore was also motion- 
less and silent. Doctor Grace stopped rowing. We 
caught the branch of an overhanging tree and moored 
ourselves at the bank, and we too were motionless 
and silent. 

Fascinated, I watched the birds. They screamed 
and fluttered their wings. Suddenly one swooped 
into the water, more plunged after it. I saw them 
struggling and flapping their sooty black wings over 
the brown water as does a white sea gull when it 
snatches a fish. The men sprang into sudden 



THE FISHING BIRDS 127 

activity. They pulled the birds up by stout strings 
tied around their legs. They caught the struggling 
birds under their arms and jerked the fishes from 
their mouths. I saw a gleam of silver as they tossed 
the fish into a wicker fishing basket. The commotion 
among the birds subsided. They settled down into 
quietness on the rows of horizontal perches, making 
a soft blackness on the water beneath by the shadow 
of their wings. 

"How many?" called a voice from the shore. 

"Three," answered one of the men. "Later, 
more," he said. "The sun not yet falls down the 
Hill of Heaven. Wait till the fish see not the 
shadow of the black birds." 

Doctor Grace explained the custom of cormorant 
fishing to me. It is an ancient Soochow industry. 
The birds, tied by a stout rope, three or four deep 
on the perches which stick out in parallel rows from 
each side of the boat, are kept very hungry. They 
fish, and the men steal the fish from their beaks. 
Along the outer moat they can often be seen fishing 
by daylight. 

"Suppose all the birds flew up in the air at once?" 
I said. "Wouldn't they carry the boat right out of 
the water?" 

"There is an ancient legend about a fisherman 
who was cruel to his birds," said Doctor Grace. 
"He took all the fish from them, not even giving 
them their just and due reward at the end of an 
evening's fishing. The birds were fierce and lean 
and hungry, and caught fish well. At night, the 
oldest son of the fisherman crept out to the tied 



128 MY CHINESE DAYS 

birds and fed them stolen morsels of rice and left- 
over bits of fish. This kept the birds strong. The 
friends of the fisherman warned him that he must 
give his birds more to eat. Day by day the birds 
became fiercer and leaner. They flapped their 
black pinions angrily over their perches and screamed 
harshly whenever the fisherman pulled open their 
beaks and robbed them of their fish. Once the 
fisherman was ill, and a neighbor took the birds out 
fishing. That day the birds gorged themselves, 
and the neighbor came home with his hand scratched 
and bleeding. 

" * Your birds are not cormorants but evil spirits,* 
he said to his friend. 'If I were you, I would set 
them loose and let them fly away in a great black 
cloud over the sky.' 

" But the fisherman only laughed and continued to 
treat the birds as before. He grew rich from his 
daily catch. And at night his little son crept out, 
in the shivery darkness, to feed the birds. He loved 
the birds. Sometimes in the early dawn he played 
to them on his little, hollow bamboo flute. As his 
father grew richer, he seemed to think all the world 
was his, and he treated everybody just as he treated 
his fishing birds. Everybody in the house grew 
afraid of him. The children hid away when they 
saw him coming home at night, and the women 
retired into their own quarters. At night when the 
birds were tied in safety, he sat under the cypresses 
at the little table in the front yard, and counted his 
fish. His little son would crouch behind the shutters 
and watch the long, lithe bodies of the fish slip 



THE FISHING BIRDS 129 

through his father's hands like shining pieces of 
silver. 

* ' One day the little boy was sick. He had smallpox 
and lay moaning on a mattress on the floor in his 
mother's room. When evening came he remem- 
bered the hungry birds, but he was afraid to tell his 
mother lest she feed them clumsily and his father 
catch her at it and beat her. He tried to get up, 
but he fell back fainting on his mattress. So that 
night the birds had no food. 

" The next day when the fisherman tied them in 
orderly rows on the side perches of the boat, the 
birds were very still and lifeless. Like black, 
wooden images they sat motionless and without 
sound. The sun hung low over the fields, making 
the shadows ebony-black, and the light places like 
patches of gold. On the farther side of the boat, 
where its shadow lay over the water, the cormorants 
saw the swift shadows of the gliding fishes. They 
saw the instantaneous flash of silver as the fish 
darted out of the shadow into the sunlit water be- 
fore disappearing from their sight. Usually this 
was the signal for diving, but the birds waited. 
Not one moved, or fluttered a pinion. The fisher- 
man stood waiting, too, wondering what had come 
over the birds. He also saw the fish shadows in the 
water like immaterial phantoms. 

"The sun slipped slowly down the vault of the sky. 
A Minne bird called from the rice fields, a star hung 
in the west. Still the birds waited ; and the fisher- 
man waited, too. It grew night. The fisherman 
could barely see the mass of birds on his right and 



'i30 MY CHINESE DAYS 

on his left. Finally a strip of the rising moon 
showed scariet over the rice fields. It was the 
signal. With harsh cries the birds flapped their 
wings in unison. The boat swayed and rocked on 
the water. A wind swept along the water from the 
rice fields and the moon. The birds lifted the boat 
free of the water, and it hung like a cradle between 
their soaring black wings. 

"The people in the house heard the screaming of 
the cormorants and the rush of their wings, and 
they ran to the front door. Above the rice fields 
they saw the boat carried away. Like a black 
feather, it floated across the moon, which rose up 
scarlet and still over the water. The man was never 
seen or heard of again. 

"And so," said Doctor Grace, "every cormorant 
fisher is careful to feed his birds well after the 
catch." 

I wanted to wait for the sunset, but it was not 
allowed. 

"That's one of the penalties of living in a walled 
city," said Doctor Grace. "You can never see the 
sun set or rise out in the fields. You can only see 
it from the walls of the city. If you don't pass 
through the water gates before sunset, you have to 
stay out all night, for at sunset the portcullis is 
lowered." 

We waved our farewell to the little group on the 
shore. I too took an oar and we rowed for dear 
life. For, much as I would like to have stayed out 
all night, it's not proper! There would be some 
advantages in having a husband ! 



THE FISHING BIRDS 131 

When we got back to the hospital we found a boy 
there with a note for Doctor Grace. 

"It's from the house of Li, the jade merchant," 
she said. "They are expecting a baby there to- 
night. Will you go along ? " 



XIII 
THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 

WE'LL want two donkeys," said Doctor 
Grace to the boy, and we flew to get 
ready, changing our clothes and swallow- 
ing cups of black coffee. A nurse handed Doctor 
Grace her out-practice bag, already packed with its 
sterilized instruments. The gatekeeper called two 
donkey boys, each with his own little donkey. 

"How are you going to ride?" I asked Doctor 
Grace. 

"I ride side-saddle," she said, "but you can ride 
as you please. The only real comfort is to ride 
astride, but so many of the older missionaries think 
it isn't ladylike that I yield to their wishes." 

Not to be outdone in politeness, I jumped up on 
my donkey sidewise, with my feet dangling in a 
truly ladylike fashion over his side. A dilapidated 
bridle and cross-saddle composed the harness. Ah 
Fok poked the donkey on the flank, and we started 
off at a brisk trot. For some unaccountable reason 
I began to laugh. I felt too ridiculous bouncing 
around on the back of the little animal ; it was so 
tiny that any man could have helped it along by 
kicking the ground. Ah Fok ran alongside, giving 



THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 133 

the necessary little, sharp cries that kept the donkey 
going and occasionally prodding him with a pointed 
stick, as we cantered gayly down the twilight 
street. Overhead the crimson sunset lingered, but 
in the narrow street of the city it was almost dusk. 
Lanterns hung before the shops. The dwelling 
houses were already closed and shuttered for the 
night. Across the court of a deserted temple, 
around a corner, and up over a bridge we went. 

The bridge, like all Chinese bridges, arched up 
at the center, making a half circle over the surface 
of the water. Up we went without slowing, and 
off I slid. It happened very simply. As the back 
of the donkey assumed the steep incline of forty- 
five degrees I slipped gently backward over his 
tail. Ah Fok rushed to my rescue. Placing both 
his hands in the small of my back, he pushed with 
all his might and main to stop my avalanche. But 
I was too heavy ; I went on sliding over the donkey's 
tail till I sat on the ground. It was all so funny I 
couldn't speak for laughing. 

"Try cross-saddle," advised Doctor Grace. 
"They saw you start off in the proper fashion. 
Your intentions were good, but the only thing to do 
is to ride the way you can stay on." 

I agreed. Those were the days of hobble skirts. 
Fortunately my petticoat was an heirloom of the 
past and possessed frills and ruffles. My dress 
skirt vanished from sight ; it became a mere string 
around my waist. But my petticoat spread out 
in a truly gratifying manner over my legs. This 
manner of riding was a great improvement. The 



134 MY CHINESE DAYS 

donkey was small enough for me to grasp com- 
fortably between my knees, and I felt as secure as 
in a rocking chair. 

"Missey can do?" asked Ah Fok, running at my 
side. 

"Can do," I answered. 

Sometimes we trotted, but more often we galloped. 
Over the up and down arches of the bridges we 
walked. The donkey boys had muscles of wire 
and heart and lungs of India rubber. Without 
the slightest effort they ran along beside the 
donkeys, shouting and giving little sharp jabs at 
their flanks. 

From the comparative quiet of darkened streets 
we turned into one of the busy thoroughfares where 
the shops stood wide open. The houses were like 
partitions, with separating walls and a back stoop 
but without any front at all. Unless one has seen 
such a street, it is hard to conceive the variety and 
color that all the lighted interiors give. The eating 
shops were full of men sitting in groups around small 
square tables, shoveling in rice by the mouthful. 
They hold the bowls close up against their lips, open 
their mouths to the fullest extent, and poke in 
great mountains of fine white rice. Holding the 
bowls at their mouths, they turn around and stare 
at the passers-by. Men with baskets full of towels 
wrung out of boiling, perfumed water pass among 
the eaters, offering a towel to each guest. It is the 
custom to wipe off one's face and head and neck with 
these towels. The waiter passes the same towel to 
the next guest and so on until the towel is cold. 



THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 135 

In the wine-shops men were filHng their tiny tea- 
cups with hot wine from metal teapots. In a large 
eat-shop a band of musicians sat playing a weird 
minor song, which echoed up and down the street 
above the sounds of evening life. At a temple a 
funeral was going on, and I caught a swift glimpse 
of priests in robes of red and green with mitered 
caps. On the outskirts of the crowd hung a fringe 
of monks in dirty gray. The hired mourners, in a 
discordant chorus, wailed shrilly, and little boy 
acolytes, in tattered, embroidered cassocks of blue 
and red, beat drums. The whole party were 
evidently enjoying themselves very much. 

Opium dens, looking like sections of Pullman 
sleepers, with rows of closely curtained bunks one 
above the other and a narrow passage running down 
the middle, were squeezed in between the shops. 

The streets themselves were filled with a busy 
throng of men. Dignitaries were carried about in 
stately sedan chairs. Once or twice I passed a 
chair in which I caught a fleeting glimpse of a 
bejeweled woman, slowly fanning herself and peer- 
ing out through the half drawn curtains with list- 
less eyes. There were no women afoot in that crowd 
of animated, merry, eating humanity. 

Ah Fok ran ahead, crying out, " Make way for the 
Illustrious Foreign-born Healer. Make way." 

The clatter of the donkeys' hoofs, the shouting 
of the donkey boys, made a stir of interest in 
the mass of people. The men squeezed up against 
the walls to let us pass, and I heard murmurs of 
surprise. In the eyes of an oriental, we were 



136 MY CHINESE DAYS 

incomprehensible. Even our own grandmothers 
would have gasped ! Women, alone, at that time 
of night, single and virtuous ! 

On the bridges I looked down on the dark canals, 
stretching like black ribbons through the city, 
separating the opposite houses, but linking the far 
parts together. Dark and mysterious they lay, in 
silent contrast to the night lights of the city. Over 
the bridge, through the bright streets, we went, 
till at last we left all the busy quarter of night life 
behind us. Ah Fok gave a vigorous jab at my 
donkey, and it burst into a run. Away went my 
stirrups ; my skirts streamed out behind me. I 
clamped my legs around the animal's body, found I 
was perfectly secure, and gave myself up to enjoy- 
ment. Ah Fok was forgotten and out of sight. A 
long straight alley lay before me, where blank walls 
rose on either side. No one was in sight. Faint, 
dim starlight made a deeper darkness of this narrow 
straight alley. No lanterns hung at the doorposts, 
no light gleamed from under the threshold of the 
barred doors sunk in the walls, no sound came from 
the houses. The night wind blew in my face. My 
hairpins fell out, and my hair streamed back in the 
wind. Only a woman knows the sense of adventure 
and freedom that comes with loose, flying hair. 
China dropped away from my consciousness, and I 
was filled with the elemental delight of swift motion 
toward an unknown destination. But the little 
donkey knew where it was going. Right and left, we 
turned the corners galloping, with the thudding 
clatter of hoofs the only sound in the stillness. We 



THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 137 

seemed to be running through a city of the dead. We 
met no one, saw no one, heard no one. 

Into the blue-black night, to which my eyes had 
grown accustomed, shot a thin gleam of yellow light, 
close along the ground. Suddenly it widened to a 
triangle, then vanished utterly. A door in the 
silent walls had opened and closed, yet I heard no 
footfalls nor the chatter of voices. Perhaps some 
one, startled by the tumultuous sound of our ap- 
proach, had but peered out from curiosity. My 
eyes focused themselves on the spot in the wall 
where the break of light had occurred. Suddenly 
we were abreast of it, then had left it behind, A 
thrill of excitement tingled through me. In that 
moment, as we flashed by, I saw a man leaning, 
slouching against the wall. He had not moved as 
we passed, nor had I turned my head to look at him. 
From some obscure reason I had pretended I had 
not seen him. He looked as if he did not want to 
be seen. The door against which he leaned was 
sunken in the wall about a foot. He stood in that 
depression, motionless and sinister. I just caught 
the dark blur of a man's figure and the pale patch 
of a face. For no reason under the sun I was excited. 
I looked back over my shoulder for Ah Fok, but 
no one was in sight, not even the hiding man. The 
alley stretched away behind me as dark and im- 
penetrable and uninhabited as when I had dashed 
down it. Yet I felt I was not alone. 

To my great relief I heard the sound of ricksha 
wheels, and I drew the donkey down to a walk. 
The shrill voices of two women talking came to me 



138 MY CHINESE DAYS 

down the alley ; the next moment I saw the lantern 
at the handlebars of a ricksha. It threw dancing, 
elfin shadows on the ground and made the legs of 
the coolie look tremendously black and thick. He 
was coming along carelessly at a jogtrot. The 
donkey halted at one side of the road, and I gathered 
up my hair and began rebraiding it. Two women 
were in the ricksha, a coolie woman and her mistress, 
who was sitting on the lap of the amah. Some 
unusual event had called them out, and they were 
talking in eager shrill tones, the ricksha man entering 
into their conversation when he saw fit. They gave 
a little shriek when they saw me, and craned their 
necks to stare back at me. 

The coming of that flickering lantern made me feel 
suddenly forlorn. The night loomed black and 
threatening around me. I had no idea where I 
was, I didn't know how to return. The donkey had 
lost his initiative ; he didn't seem to know any 
more than I did. The voices died away down the 
alley. The bobbing gleams of light were quite gone, 
so was my thrill and exhilaration. I felt utterly 
deserted and alone. I also felt that Edward had been 
very remiss to let me go off alone to Soochow ! He 
might have known something would happen to me ! 
Then I couldn't stand it any longer. 

I dug my heels into the donkey and turned him 
back down the alley in the direction from which we 
had come, for I wanted to catch up with that lighted 
lantern and those voices. The donkey sensed my 
meaning, and quite resignedly he trotted along back. 
Around the next corner I caught sight of the friendly 



THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 139 

light shining on the legs of the ricksha man and on 
the spokes of the ricksha wheels and making a little 
arc of light on the pavement. It was a wonderful 
splash of light. 

Suddenly something happened to it : it was 
dashed out of existence. A wild clamor broke out 
in front of me. The women screamed shrilly, their 
voices echoing back and forth across the alley from 
wall to wall, like balls bouncing to and fro. I heard 
the low guttural growl of a man. Then the ricksha 
man rushed past me, yelling. A woman screamed 
in a mounting shriek of terror, and I heard a stir 
of doors opening and closing on the other side of the 
walls, but no one came out into the alley. 

I was deathly afraid, but I couldn't stay there 
and hear two women murdered, so I kicked the 
donkey, and we clattered towards the fray. But 
after all it wasn't I who saved the day, it was Ah 
Fok, the donkey boy. Running and shouting, he 
turned into the alley and bore down upon us. 

The mistress had been thrown out on the ground 
by the sudden desertion of the ricksha man. A 
heavy figure stooped over her, and the amah was 
pounding and pulling at this figure. Ah Fok and I 
made a goodly din in the stillness. The robber 
was startled. He sprang to his feet, looked up and 
down the alley, and saw foes approaching in both 
directions. Quickly he leaned against the sunken 
door in the wall, and vanished from our sight. 

Ridiculous and infantile, more like a hopping 
shadow than a rescuer. Ah Fok sprang towards the 
prostrate woman. I was already off my donkey 



I40 MY CHINESE DAYS 

and kneeling beside her. The amah, in shrill 
excitement, pulled her to her feet. 

"My rings and my bracelets," wailed the woman. 
"He has stolen my jewels." 

With a swift movement the amah's hands went to 
the ears of her mistress. 

"He had no time," said the woman. "I felt 
the blade of a knife cold against my cheek, but then 
the foreign woman cried out, and the man withheld 
his hand." 

The amah was straightening her mistress' clothes 
and loudly bewailing their misfortune. Ah Fok, 
panting, leaned against the donkey, and I patted his 
hands. What funny things we do when we are 
upset ! Neither of us spoke. I heard the sliding 
home of heavy bolts on the other side of the wall. 
At the end of the alley I saw a growing glimmer of 
light. It was the ricksha man, coming back with a 
friend. I sat on my donkey while they all had a 
"talkee talk." Ah Fok, satisfied as to my safety, 
joined in the parley, but no gate opened in the blank 
walls, and no head appeared to see what was up. 
That struck me as queer. I found I was shaking, 
or rather that the beating of my heart was shaking 
me. Also I was in a dripping perspiration. At last 
the Chinese turned and went off down the alley in 
the direction from which they had come. Ah Fok 
tied a leading string to the donkey's bridle. The 
noise of the rickshas died away. In the alley it was 
again utterly dark and silent. A strip of starry sky 
roofed the space between the houses. Taking a 
last look at the heavy wooden door sunk in the wall, 



THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 141 

I noticed a faint glimmer of light near the threshold. 

"What's that?" I asked Ah Fok. 

He stooped and picked up a knife and held it out 
to me. It had a wide bright blade, and dusty red 
spots mottled its edge. I looked at it curiously. 
The handle was bluntly round and dark from much 
holding in hot, sweaty hands. I wanted to take it 
home as a souvenir. I wanted to show it to Edward. 
I wanted it very muchj but so did Ah Fok. His 
whole body trembled with fearful entreaty. I 
suddenly became convinced that the robber was 
crouching on the other side of that barred door, 
listening with every nerve of his body. I almost 
fancied that Ah Fok turned and spoke so that his 
voice and words should carry to any one listening on 
the other side of the wall. 

"Belong bad knife," he said. "Suppose Missey 
take homeside, some night knife can walk, can kill. 
Throw away." 

Ah Fok held out his hands for the knife, but I 
still turned it over and over in my fingers, loath to 
relinquish it. Ah Fok, searching in his belt, drew 
out a box of matches. He lit two or three at once. 
The sudden flame made the scene weird and un- 
canny, throwing a great distorted shadow of us on the 
smooth surface of the opposite wall. The donkey 
was like some monstrous beast while Ah Fok and I 
bent like two gnomes over the blade in my hands. 
At one end of the handle, cut deeply into the wood 
and painted red, were two Chinese characters 
meaning "White Wolf." 

"Bah Long" (White Wolf), shouted Ah Fok. 



142 MY CHINESE DAYS 

He caught the knife from my hands and threw it 
over the wall. We stood immobile till we heard it 
clang on the pavement of the garden within the 
wall. From over the wall came the sound of stealthy 
motions and a just audible sigh of content. 

Ah Fok too was satisfied. He pulled at the rope 
on the bridle and we walked sedately back, down 
that long, narrow, sinister alley where all the houses 
were dark and barred and silent, where no glimmer 
of light shone through the chinks in the walls and 
doorways. The way back was long and tortuous. 
I had a suspicion that Ah Fok was purposely twisting 
this way and that so that I should utterly lose 
what sense of direction I had, so that I should never, 
by any chance, find that barred door in the blind 
wall. 

We crossed a high bridge. The dark canal was 
dotted with the pinpoint, white reflections of the 
tranquil stars overhead. With soft gurgles, the 
water rushed and swished against the posts of the 
bridge. Something like the curved blade of a 
knife stuck in the ooze on the shore. I was never 
sure about that crescent bit of light. It might have 
been metal, but it might have been merely the 
iridescent gleam of a stagnant pool that took shape 
and meaning from our heated imaginations. 

"A White Wolf knife," I whispered, pointing at 
the bit of silver light. 

Ah Fok shivered. 

"Bah Long," he whispered, his teeth chattering. 
The name of the famous brigand was yet more 
fearful than the fear of devils. Ah Fok jabbed 



THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 143 

the donkey fiercely, and we plunged down the 
steep, Irregular steps of the high bridge. The 
donkey slipped to his haunches and recovered his 
footing with a jerk, but Ah Fok, as if pursued by a 
hundred evil spirits, urged the donkey along, regard- 
less of pitfalls. His sharp ringing cries echoed 
shrilly up and down the empty street. We did 
not slow down till we caught up with Doctor Grace. 

We found her dismounted, waiting In front of a 
massive door, with a group of amahs and coolies 
around her. Lanterns hung on the gateposts. A 
lighted doorway threw floods of light down the path 
to the gate. From within the house came the sound 
of a woman moaning. 

"Where have you been?" she asked. "I was 
about to turn back to hunt for you." 

"The donkey ran away, and I got lost," I answered, 
"we had quite an adventure." I explained, telling 
her all the details. Doctor Grace took my news 
seriously. 

"I'm afraid we'll have to discharge Ah Fok," she 
said. "He came to us without a recommendation. 
Once before his donkey has run away In that direc- 
tion. That is a very dangerous part of the city. 
Even In peaceful times it Is unsafe, but since the 
terrorism of the White Wolf brigands It Is really 
dangerous. A nest of them are reported to be In 
hiding somewhere over there near one of the gates. 
Just last week one was shot by a sentry while he 
was trying to escape over the wall by night. 
Robberies are frequent, but the people are so afraid 
that they do nothing." 



144 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"It wasn't Ah Fok's fault," I said. "I think I 
rather enjoyed it." 

Something within me, utterly primitive and un- 
tamed, exulted in the close danger, in my dip into 
the days of lawlessness and disorder and secrecy. 
My blood tingled through my veins. I wanted to go 
back to the hidden world of violence, to cast off my 
tame, demure shackles and be an Amazon. I was 
feeling very wild and reckless. I had not known 
before that each individual harbors all the past of 
the race within his own inner consciousness, battened 
down, clamped under by the etiquette of civilization. 
It had only needed the runaway, galloping hoofs 
of a little donkey and the gleam of a knife along the 
wall to hurl me back into the aeons of the past. 

But Doctor Grace guessed none of this. Out- 
wardly as quiet and well behaved as she, I walked 
through the gate of the House of Li, the Jeweller 
in Jade. 



XIV 
THE WIVES OF LI 

AS Doctor Grace led the way quickly into the 
house, I caught but a fleeting glimpse of 
the dark spaces of the garden. Great 
rocks and tall cypresses and the gentle sound of 
water filled the shadows. In the guest hall we were 
met by Li Sien Sang. He was a short man with a 
picture-book Chinese moustache, very fine and thin, 
with the ends drooping down on each side of his 
mouth like a pair of walrus tusks. The skin on his 
cheeks was pulled tightly across the malar bones 
underneath, giving him a look of emaciation. His 
manners were very courtly and his English good. 
He made us welcome and turned us over to the 
women of the house. 

The guest hall was large and handsomely fur- 
nished. A beautiful scroll hung on the back wall of 
the room over the table of ceremonial worship. 
Two tall candlesticks, of a metal resembling pewter, 
on which thick red candles were spiked and flaring, 
stood on each corner of the table. A thin curl of 
incense from a brass griffin scented the room. Along 
the two walls, in rows of rigid orderliness, stood the 
guest tables and chairs, as if placed in readiness for 
ghostly visitors. The great divan of honor was of 



146 MY CHINESE DAYS 

finely woven rattan and carved redwood. My 
restless eyes were roving around the apartment 
while Doctor Grace and Mr. Li were talking. Here 
all was the height of formality. Each step of a 
guest was preordained, each formula of greeting 
ancestrally old and hallowed. Here it is, in the 
great guest hall, that the westerner is bafifled. He 
comes with a direct purpose, a direct question in his 
mind, and is enwebbed by the delicate, shimmering 
fabric of oriental politeness. To us, it will ever be a 
mystery, one of the essential, lasting mysteries of 
existence, deeper than the evanescent customs of 
civilization, buried in the fiber of the race. 

But our errand carried us past this jealously 
guarded room of ceremonies, into the primitive 
openness of life, where the Chinese are more aston- 
ishingly communicative than we. 

The mother of Li, an autocratic old dame, still 
vigorous in spite of her advanced years, led us up 
the stairs into the apartment of the latest bride. 
Too much power throughout a long life had left 
her with an ungovernable temper. This was her 
reputation in Soochow, and her face showed as 
much. Servants and amahs clustered about us. 
Upstairs the rooms of the women's quarters were 
furnished with the same elegance as the guest hall. 
We were led through one room after another in 
which stood beds of carved redwood and heavy, 
round, redwood tables, with deeply carved dragons 
sprawling along the edge. The servants laughed and 
whispered and nudged each other, as is the way of 
servants in the Orient. In spite of the customs of a 



THE WIVES OP LI 147 

higher caste, they show a strange democratic free- 
dom of behavior and speech. 

At last we came to the room of the fourth wife 
of Li. A young girl was propped up on a bed, lying 
back against the shoulders of her body servant. 

"Already three days she has not slept," said the 
mother-in-law. "The noise of her groans disturbs 
me. I have not much hope that the child is a boy. 
I said as much to my son when he married her. She 
was pretty, but not of a suitable house. So to-day 
I said to my son, 'call the foreign-born healer and 
let this noise be stopped.* " 

The old dowager walked over to the bed on her 
tiny stilt-like feet. Her silken trousers flapped 
against her. Her jacket was buttoned on her right 
shoulder with round jade studs, as large as a robin's 
egg and of that wonderful, clear, prized color of 
fresh spinach. Her hair ornaments were jade and 
pearl. The edge of her headband was incrusted 
with pearls. In spite of her advanced age, she was 
a graceful and imposing figure. I saw the other 
women watching her anxiously, as with her slow, 
wooden-kneed, mincing step she crossed the room 
and stood by the bed of the fourth wife. A not 
unkindly expression crossed her face. 

"If it is a boy," she said, "I will make you my 
son's Great Wife. I will give you jade rings and 
pearl earrings and new clothes of satin and em- 
broidery. But if it is a girl, Oh ! then, thou un- 
fortunate woman, go hide thy face from me forever. 
You will be fit only to be cast forth on the 
street." 



148 MY CHINESE DAYS 

The picture is cut into my brain — the square 
Chinese room with its curtained, carved bed, the 
center of all eyes ; along the walls and in the door- 
way the faces of the curious, peeping women, some 
in silks and some in the common blue cloth of amahs ; 
the figure of the mother-in-law, aloof and scornful 
at the corner of the bride's bed. From the recess 
of the bed looked the wide, drawn eyes of the girl. 
Her face was white with pain, yet the fear that lurked 
in her glance was more than the fear of physical 
suffering ; it was the helpless, haunting fear of fate. 
This was the night of her ordeal. All her future life 
lay in the balance. Should it be happiness and honor 
and favor, or dishonor and drudgery ? Already the 
answer lay decided within her. She had carried 
it around with her wherever she went, month after 
month, while her very soul was torn with suspense. 
Was it a girl, or was it a boy ? Her agony of body 
was nothing to her agony of mind. 

She was dressed in bridal crimson, and her hands 
were covered with rings. From the canopy of her 
bed hung countless balls and tassels, the supposed 
bringers of sons. Over her shoulder peered the 
curious eyes of her amah. For three days this 
woman too had shared the vigil of her mistress. 

" Do you want me," I asked Doctor Grace. 

"Not just now," she said. "Why don't you go 
and lie down, and I will call you when it is time for 
the anesthetic." 

They led me away to the chamber adjoining and 
offered me a bed. I was tired, and I knew that a 
long wait, probably most of the night, lay before 



THE WIVES OF LI 149 

me, so I lay down. All the bedclothes were silk. 
A cover of pink padded satin was spread on the 
mattress of. woven coconut fiber. A little, wooden, 
neckpillow was placed under my head. A neatly 
rolled up pile of comforts lay along one side of the 
bed, ready for use — turquoise blue, imperial yellow, 
peach-blossom pink, all in the softest fabrics. On a 
round table near the bedside stood two water pipes 
of silver. 

I lay down and pretended to sleep, but my mind 
was in too much of a whirl to compose itself. Amahs, 
carrying wooden pails of hot water, passed through 
the room, spilling puddles on the bare floor. The 
Chinese have evolved a strange, practical utility in 
their furniture. Scalding water neither hurts the 
varnish of the tables, nor the bare boards of their 
floors. In the next room I heard Doctor Grace's 
quiet voice. The groaning ceased, and soon Doctor 
Grace came in on tiptoe. 

"She is sleeping," she said. "I have given her a 
sedative. She was quite worn out. This is a 
fiendish method, to keep the woman awake for 
days and days. Poor thing ! She is only eighteen 
and scared to death of the old mother-in-law." 

The doctor went back to her vigil, and I lay with 
my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Another 
woman came in and stood beside me. She was 
about the age of Li and wore very handsome clothes. 
Her hair, though thin, was still black, and, in the 
uncanny fashion of the Chinese, her scalp had 
been blackened so that her baldness did not show. 
She took up the pipe that stood on the table, opened 



ISO MY CHINESE DAYS 

the lid of the tobacco box, and picked up a tiny pinch 
with the little, silver pinchers that stood in a slim 
stand at the side. She poked this little pinch of 
tobacco into the pipe and drew two whiffs. Then 
she emptied out the smoked tobacco and repeated 
the process. She was leaning against the table, 
one satin, trousered leg crossed over the other, in a 
pose very graceful and natural. She smoked at 
least five minutes in silence, her eyes on the little 
instrument of pleasure. Her hands were laden 
with rings, and heavy bracelets of carved gold set 
with jade and sapphire clasped her wrists. The 
little pipe itself, with its carved dragons, and dangling 
silken tassels of peach pink, was utterly alluring. 
Graceful, daintily feminine, she intrigued my fancy. 
I wanted to know what she was thinking, what she 
had been thinking all her life, whether she liked it or 
not, what thrilled her, what bored her, what she 
thought about babies and men. I wanted to bridge 
the gulf between us and to have her talk to me 
frankly. I thought of the women I knew at home, 
women of fifty or thereabouts and, to my mind's 
eye, none of them presented the picture of mystery 
and charm this Chinese woman did smoking her 
silver pipe. 

I had been watching her ever since she came into 
the room. She must have felt my staring, for she 
turned and smiled at me. This was my first sight 
of her full face, and I saw at once that she was an 
aristocratic Chinese beauty. She had the delicate 
oval face of classical beauty, and a smooth skin of 
almost occidental fairness, a skin that had never 



THE WIVES OF LI 151 

been sunburned or wind-burned. She was, more- 
over, very carefully rouged and painted. Her eye- 
brows were drawn in a thin, fine, black arch over 
her sleepy eyes. The eyes themselves were faintly 
almond shaped and drowsy lidded. Her under lip 
was carmined, but not the upper. Hoops of pearl 
hung in her ears, lustrous against the soft bloom of 
her cheeks. 

Here was a woman, past master in all that I was 
ignorant of, a creature that had made of herself a 
mysterious thing of subtle charm. How did she do 
it ? Was she satisfied ? 

I sat up and spoke to her in English for I was sure 
that all the women in such a house would be educated. 
Nor was I mistaken. She spoke it beautifully, with 
only the hint of a delicious accent. I remembered 
that personal questions are the height of oriental 
politeness, so I began asking them. 

"I'm not sleepy," I said, "I might as well get up, 
if you will stay and talk to me. Does it not wear 
you out staying up so many nights?" 

"Oh, no," she said, "I like to stay up when there 
is a child coming. It is the proper place of the first 
wife. I have seen almost twenty babies born in 
this house since I came here thirty years ago." 

"Tell me about them," I said. "Tell me about 
yourself." 

Li Ta Ta smiled with pleasure. "If you like to 
listen, I will gladly tell you," she said. " It is an 
event to me to talk to a young foreign-born woman. 
Sometimes, from our latticed window on the moat, 
we see them coming to the home of th^ Doctrine- 



152 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Sowers near the wall. They ride by so gaily in their 
uncurtained sedan chairs. Long ago I used to 
envy them, but I don't any more. Now I think 
sometimes they don't understand the essentials of 
being a woman. I have been satisfied with my 
life; that is, I am now satisfied. Once I was un- 
happy, because I had no sons; but that has all 
passed. 

"Tell me about it?" I urged. 

"From the beginning?" asked Li Ta Ta. 

"Yes, from the beginning," I said. 

She was evidently pleased that I was interested. 
What she told me was like a fairy story, so improbable 
and unreal it seemed to my western mind. 

"My father was head of the Jade Cutters* Guild," 
she said. " In his youth he made a trip to America. 
When he came home, he said to my mother that 
all his sons and daughters should be educated in the 
Western learning. At that time, the girls' school 
was just founded and had only a dozen pupils. 
When I was twelve years old, my father enrolled 
me as one of the first scholars. I was very happy 
there. I wanted to be a Christian, but my father 
would not allow it. Though in some respects he 
was very advanced, in matters of religion he was 
very conservative. We were devout Buddhists. 
Memories of Christmas festivals at school and 
Buddhist feasts lie side by side in my heart. In my 
childish mind I easily reconciled the beliefs of my 
loved ones, of my family, and of my teachers. The 
color of something gentle and sweet has always 
lain on the world for me, in spite of all the bitterness 



THE WIVES OF LI 153 

I have eaten. At sixteen I was married. Even 
after all the long, benumbing length of years, I can 
still taste the salt tears on my lips as I sat shrouded 
in my bridal veil and was carried from the house of 
my parents to the home of my bridegroom's parents. 
Such utter, sweeping desolation engulfed me ! I 
had a gorgeous bridal procession. My chair was 
lacquered in crimson and gilded with many dragons. 
My clothes were stiff with embroidery and pearls. 
Eight men took turns carrying me through the 
streets. But I sat within, crying. Thankful I 
was for my veil. I was lonely and frightened to 
death. Wealthy as was the house of Li, my mother- 
in-law had already established a reputation for 
tyranny and cruelty. She beat a slave to death. 
She cut off her amah's forefinger because she dropped 
a favorite vase. No wonder I sat in my bridal dress, 
crying bitter tears behind my veil of pearls, under 
my coronet of blue kingfisher feathers. I wished I 
could die. 

"Within nine months my baby was born. It was 
a girl. My cup of bitterness ran over. Then, little 
by little, I loved the baby. It was so soft and round 
and rosy. I would take it away from the amah and 
run off to a corner in the garden, and play with it 
and sing to it and kiss it. I was in disgrace in the 
household because I had borne a girl, but, in those 
days, there was still hope. My husband was good 
to me. In my heart I was sick that the baby was 
not a boy, but by-and-by I grew happy again. In 
the winter, it was warm in the sunshine in the walled 
garden where I watched the lizards crawl out to 



154 MY CHINESE DAYS 

sun themselves. From the top window I looked up 
at the clouds and saw the line of the wall marching 
across the sky. On feast days we were carried 
forth in our sedan chairs to the temples or the graves. 
My husband was proud of my foreign accomplish- 
ments. 

"With the passing of each year came a baby 
girl. The temper of my mother-in-law grew worse. 
Three of the little girls died. She rejoiced when 
they died, and I hated her. Then, one day, my 
husband told me he had arranged to take a second 
wife to bear him sons. He said I was accursed and 
would only bear girls. 

"For days, I hid in the garden. My old amah, 
the one who had nursed all my babies, brought me 
food from the house. I heard the sounds of the 
wedding preparations. Finally pride made me go 
back, and I took my rightful place as the Great 
First Wife. I meant to hate the Small Wife, just as 
my mother-in-law hated me ; it was my perquisite 
to hate her and make her life a misery to her. But 
I loved her from the first. She was young, and we 
were like sisters. Together we escaped from my 
mother-in-law's presence and sat in the garden. 
My amah bored a chink in the wall at the further 
end, and we took turns looking out at the world of 
passers-by. 

"When May Li's first girl was born, I had already 
three living and three dead children. Not nursing 
my children myself, I had a child every year. May 
Li was too discouraged to get well. She lay in bed 
and grew white and pale. She didn't love her baby 



THE WIVES OF. LI 155 

girl as I had loved mine. One day she said to me, 
'Ask thy husband if we may go to the temple to 
pray before the Goddess Kwannon. We will take 
the children and lunch and spend the day.' 

"That night I beguiled my husband, and he prom- 
ised to get us permission from his mother. The 
next day was clear and calm with a warm sun 
shining. It was springtime and, even in the city, 
the peach trees were blooming, and the little patches 
of yellow rape were like carpets of gold. Four 
chairs and bearers were prepared for us. I took 
my three daughters, Ling-Di (leading a brother), 
A-doo, (the greatest), and San Me (the third sister) 
with me. A-doo sat in the chair with my amah, 
Ling-Di sat on my lap, and San Me crouched at my 
feet. May Li got into her chair alone, the amah in 
another, with the baby Ai Ling in her arms. The 
cook had put up a nice lunch for us, which the 
amahs carried in two wicker baskets." 

Li Ta Ta paused and blew a little whiff of smoke 
and looked at me questioningly. "Are you sure you 
care to hear all this?" she asked. 

I eagerly assured her that I did. 

"You see," she said, " the mind of a Chinese woman 
is filled with all manner of foolishness. It concerns 
itself, not with the big things of life, but with each 
little happening of our days with our children. It 
treasures them up, to think over by and by when the 
children are gone from us. I even remember the 
clothes my daughters wore that day of long ago. 
It is long since I lost them. They have all married 
and are gone to the houses of their mothers-in-law. 



is6 MY CHINESE DAYS 

But on that bright day, so long ago, they were still 
mine. They were dressed in their best clothes, 
bright blue and pink and the baby in red. I couldn't 
help being happy. But May Li was sad. She had 
never resigned herself to her fate as had I. She 
had never carried her little baby in her arms ; she 
seemed to hate her. So she sat alone in her sedan 
chair. The streets were full of interest to me and 
to my children. They pushed their heads out of 
the curtains and exclaimed at everything. Only A- 
doo had seen the canals before; to the other two 
water was something new and strange. Ling Di 
asked if one could walk on it. We were on our way 
to the Temple of Kwannon with her thousand hands 
of mercy. The temple is on one side of a deserted 
square. It used to be a busy marketplace, but the 
new market has taken away most of the trade. Our 
bearers put us down before the steps of the temple 
and sat down in the shade to rest, while the children 
ran about gaily. At one corner of the square stood 
an old pagoda with its paintings faded and its 
bells gone. A scribe sat at a low table under a 
willow in the shade, ready to write charms. A few 
candy shops stretched along in a row. We let the 
children wander at will with the amahs. Only A- 
doo held to my hand. May Li took her baby from 
the arms of the amah and held it close against her 
heart. I wondered if she had loved it all along and 
had only been pretending not to care for it on account 
of the mother-in-law. We went up to the temple 
steps — they were low stone steps worn from many 
feet. At the candle stand we bought many red 



THE WIVES OF LI 157 

candles and packages of incense. Before the Image 
were rows and rows of candlesticks with empty 
spikes. We filled them all with candles, sticking each 
candle on its sharp spike. An old priest came out 
from the shadows behind the Goddess and lit the 
candles. We crouched on the floor and beat our 
heads against the ground. I do not know for what 
May Li prayed. I had ceased to pray for sons. I 
too believed the words of my mother-in-law, that I 
could only bear girls, and it no longer mattered 
to me. It was so many years ago that I had hoped 
to have sons ! Now, I no longer hoped for them. My 
mind was a blank. I sat on my feet on the old 
stones and beat my head against the ground and 
prayed for gentle mothers-in-law for my daughters. 
Then I sat back on my feet and lifted up my face 
and looked at the Goddess. She was a great Goddess 
and filled all the space of the temple. Her head was 
lost under the gloom of the peaked roof ; her many 
hands were painted golden. Through the twinkling 
yellow lights and the long red lines of the candles I 
looked up at her and wondered. We had lit all 
our incense, so that the air was hazy and fragrant 
with it. A-doo got up and ran away to play with 
the other children. I looked over my shoulder and 
saw them bargaining at the candy shops. I saw 
the ancient scribe waiting bent over his table. No 
one wanted a letter written. The old priest in dirty 
gray robes went mumbling around in the shadows 
behind the great Goddess. Many strange thoughts 
went through my mind as I sat on my feet before the 
Goddess. I looked at May Li. She was rocking 



iS8 MY CHINESE DAYS 

herself to and fro the way mourners rock. I heard 
her murmuring words to the sleeping baby, ' Precious 
Jewel.' 

"At one side of the temple was a nunnery of 
Buddhists who served the Goddess of Mercy. 
Behind the temple there used to be a baby tower, 
but it was no longer used. Instead, mothers gave 
their babies to the nuns. At the gateway hung 
the Sign of the Crimson Fish. This hung low so 
that a woman could reach it and strike it with her 
hands. When so struck, the crimson fish gave out a 
hollow, ringing sound lik^ the mournful tolling of a 
temple bell. Below the sign of the fish was a gray 
drawer in the gate, I had forgotten about the 
nunnery and the baby drawer till I saw it again. A 
fear leaped into my heart. I looked out of the 
corner of my eyes at May Li. She still sat rocking 
herself on her feet with the baby in her arms. 

"I bowed myself three times quickly before the 
Goddess. I looked again at her thousand hands. 
They were hands stretched out to help, but what 
can an image do ! Of course it was wicked to think 
this, but the thoughts came into my head of their 
own accord. The red candles were burning brighter, 
and their yellow flames danced like a thousand lights 
before my eyes. The incense hung in a blue haze 
around the head and eyes of the Goddess, hiding her 
face from our eyes. Was she angry at my impious 
thoughts ? 

"I touched May Li on the arm. 'Come to 
lunch,' I said. She got up at once and joined us. 
The servants had prepared our lunch at a table in 



THE WIVES OF LI 159 

thont of the candy shops. There were three or 
four tables filled with lunch parties who had come 
to worship at the feet of the Goddess of Mercy. 
We got hot water for our tea from the hot-water shop 
at the corner. The children and the amahs and I 
were happy. We watched everything with new 
eyes. Men riding by on donkeys, carry-coolies, 
amahs with bundles — everything was of intense 
interest to us. The sun was warm and pleasant ; 
a drowsy peace pervaded the deserted market 
square. 

"Suddenly the booming of the Crimson Fish 
startled me. I turned around and looked at it. 
May Li stood under it. With one arm she held 
Ai Ling pressed against her heart, with the other 
she struck the fish sharply again. The sound 
echoed out over the happy square. The children 
and amahs turned in a fright. Even the sleepy 
scribe lifted up his head to look in amazement. 
Again May Li struck the fish. Three times its 
hollow, mournful sound reverberated out over the 
square. She bent her head as if listening for foot- 
steps on the other side of the gate, while we stood as 
motionless and silent as if we too were listening for 
the sound of approaching feet. She heard them. 
She bent forward quickly, jerked open the baby 
drawer, and laid Ai Ling in it. Then she shut the 
drawer, and again she bent her head to listen. She 
heard the slow retreat of feet from the gateway. 
With a shriek of despair she pulled open the drawer 
again. It was empty ! May Li fell shrieking into 
my arms. 



i6o MY CHINESE DAYS 

"The events of the day were not yet over. The 
bearers and the amahs clustered around May Li 
in great concern. One of the bearers suggested that 
we go a Httle way into the country, to make May Li 
forget the sharpness of her sorrow. To go outside 
the walls was to us like going to another continent. 
Even sunk in the depths of sorrow, such a prospect 
must have roused one. May Li grew calmer. 'I 
could not let her live where she was unwanted,' she 
said. 'The nuns will be good to her.' 

"The men took us through a little gate in the wall 
and set our chairs down on the ground. With 
utter astonishment we looked off, far away, across 
the fields without houses, without stores, without 
temples. I had never seen such a far horizon in 
my life, nor so much grass. The rape fields blazed 
like captive sunshine and rippled in the wind like 
golden water. The boats on the moat moved 
mysteriously. We saw the wind belly out their 
tall brown sails, and we saw them slip over the water 
without effort of any kind. We saw the greatest 
wonder of our lives. A feather of black cloud 
appeared over the field and approached towards us, 
as if driven by a great wind. But we did not feel 
this wind ; we felt only the gentle summer wind in 
our faces, the same wind that ballooned out the 
brown sails of the boats. But the wind that 
blew the black cloud down upon us was another 
wind. The black cloud rushed at us. It spread 
out over the plains and cast a dark shadow on 
the rape fields, so that they no longer were golden, 
but gray. 



THE WIVES OF LI i6i 

"'See, Mother,' cried A-doo, 'a black dragon 
crawls beneath the wind cloud.' A shrill whistle 
pierced our ears. Nothing that we had ever heard 
in our lives could make such a sound. 

" ' What is it, Mother ? ' asked the children. ' Is it 
the black wind cloud speaking, or the snake that 
crawls beneath ? ' 

"When it slowed and stopped across the moat from 
us, the children screamed in terror. Tongues of 
fire spurted from its nostrils and fire gleamed under 
its head. We did not draw a free breath till the 
dragon and its wind cloud fled away across the fields 
again and left us in peace once more. We could not 
talk enough of the sight we had seen. Only one of 
the bearers had seen a fire wagon before. We were 
all equally astounded. Even May Li smiled. To 
you, who have ridden fearlessly on many fire- 
wagons, it will be hard to understand what an event 
the first sight of a train was to us. We had our 
first inkling of some power utterly foreign and in- 
comprehensible and strange, rushing at us across the 
space of the world. 

"No wonder that day is as clear to me as if it 
were yesterday. Such a day, even among days of 
interest, would stand out in memory, but when it 
was the only day for months and months when 
anything had happened other than three meals, you 
can conceive of the magnitude of its happenings. 

"The loss of the baby did not disturb us much. 
We were too accustomed to such actions. More- 
over the mother-in-law would approve. Even my 
husband himself would not regret too much. It 



i62 MY CHINESE DAYS 

was expensive to bring up a houseful of girls. It 
was a pious act. 

"The climax of the day was upon us. Entering 
the streets of the city, where even the sunlight seemed 
shadowy and unreal, a great noise met our ears. 
People were running hither and thither; men 
called out to one another. A sharp smell of burning 
struck our nostrils. We turned into the temple 
square. A mass of fire and flames writhed and 
twisted upward. The crowds surged around it. 
The temple was burning and the cloister beside it. 
Frightened nuns ran screaming from the doorway. 
One, a tower of flame, threw herself from a second- 
story window, and more jumped after her. The old 
priest we had seen mumbling prayers in the shadow 
of Kwannon, crouched by the scribe, scared half out 
of his wits. With an echoing crash the temple roof 
fell in. Showers of splinters rushed up heavenwards. 
Smoke and flames swirled and tossed about the great 
Goddess. Now, for the first time, I knew she was 
great. Without outcry, immovable and glowing, 
she sat among the eddying clouds of smoke. Her 
thousand hands glowed red and live. Her eyes 
shone. Her heavy hair seemed to move. Gone 
was the crimson and gold ; naked and glowing, she 
sat unmoved. More terrible than in her days of 
prosperity, potent and powerful, she shone at us 
through the drifts of gray smoke. 

"The crowd grew silent watching the transformed 
goddess. Only May Li began to cry aloud 'My 
baby.' She jumped out of her chair and struggled 
through the crowd. They let her pass till at last 



THE WIVES OF LI 163 

she stood just in front of the Goddess. She stretched 
out her hands to the shining Goddess and cried, 
'Give me back my baby.' 

"Two nuns ran and drew her back. 'Go home,' 
they said, 'the Goddess has taken thy child.'" 

Li Ta Ta shook herself as if she were tired from 
holding herself rigid in one position too long. I too 
was cramped. She sighed and refilled her little pipe. 

"The fire didn't hurt the Goddess at all. The 
priests put on new red paint and regilded the bronze 
hands and her fame became great again. May Li 
however was never the same. A sorrowing spirit 
entered into her. She shut herself up in her room 
and refused to see any one. The mother-in-law 
was very fierce with her, but it was useless. May Li 
refused, and at last every one gave up trying. They 
say she is crazy. She sits in her room with the 
bars across the windows and gazes out at the sun- 
shine. Often for days she neither eats nor speaks. 
We almost forget about her. It is as if she had died 
that day with her baby ; only her body is left. 

"After May Li, my husband took another wife. 
He went far away to the north, across the river, and 
took a country woman to wife. The mother-in-law 
so ordained it. In China we think it becomes 
necessary every so often for an illustrious family to 
take a wife from the people. Dong lung was not 
much more than a slave wife. She was fat and 
strong ; she could carry great wooden buckets full 
of water. And she nursed her children. Then it 
was, that I knew the curse was not upon May Li 
and myself; the curse was upon the House of Li. 



i64 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Even this peasant woman bore only girls. Round, 
laughing, merry girls, a new one came every year. It 
was a bitter disgrace. The mother-in-law mocked 
at us, saying, we would be called The House of 
Girls. Li decided to adopt a boy, the younger son 
of his first cousin, to carry on the name. That would 
have ended our troubles, but one day he went to 
Shanghai and brought this girl back with him. 
'Jewel', he called her. I was very angry, for I 
saw that my husband had taken her because he 
loved her. He had bought her in a wicked house 
because of her beautiful face and hands. Though 
she was only fourth wife, he made her his favorite. 
The mother-in-law was terribly angry. She wished 
me to torment the girl, but though I too was angry, 
I could not. She was but little younger than my 
San Me who had married and left me, and I could 
not beat her and mistreat her. Once when my 
husband was gone on a long business trip, the 
mother-in-law herself beat her till she fainted. Li 
came home unexpectedly that night and found the 
marks of the beating still on her body. The mother- 
in-law has feared him since. Pau Tsu (Jewel) is 
terrified. She is afraid to have a girl. But I do not 
think my husband cares so much any more. He 
is contented in his mind to adopt a son. He only 
cares for the girl herself. It is as if he loved for the 
first time. And now I do not mind that either. He 
leaves me alone and I am able to think and remember. 
I wish that Pau Tsu may bear him a son." 

Li Ta Ta stopped speaking and went over to the 
door leading to the next room. All was silent 



THE WIVES OF LI] 165 

within, and I got up and went in to see Doctor Grace. 
Both she and the patient were sleeping. In an 
adjoining room I saw the dowager and some of the 
other women sleeping. While I looked at them they 
opened their eyes and questioned me mutely. I 
shook my head, and their eyelids fluttered to again. 
Li Ta Ta left me. The house was silent with an un- 
canny silence, the ominous, forced silence of people 
and places that wait for some momentous event, 
that save and husband their energies for swift action. 
I was troubled. The recital of Li Ta Ta's story 
had stirred me strangely. It was so alien, so primi- 
tive in its physical interests, yet, the more I pondered 
it, the better I realized that she had found quietness 
for her soul by a spiritual conquest. She had come 
to possess her soul in peace and comfort. Her fight 
was the fight of all humanity, the struggle to rise 
above surroundings, to grow out of things material 
into things spiritual. What sublimer height could an 
oriental woman reach than for the first wife to wish 
her rival a son ! 

I was awakened from a doze by Doctor Grace 
standing over me. 

"It's time," she said, "if you will give the 
anesthetic." 

With the sudden plunge into full consciousness 
which doctors acquire, I followed her into the 
next room. Amahs were coming and going. The 
mother-in-law and Li Ta Ta sat on a couch be- 
hind the curtains of the bed. Li himself caught 
Doctor Grace's sleeve as we passed through the 
doorway. 



i66 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"Never mind about the child," he said. "I only 
care about the woman." 

His hands trembled, and his voice was husky. 
Li Ta Ta was right. Her husband loved his bought 
slave bride. He had forgotten about the necessary 
son to worship at his tomb, had forgotten all but the 
woman he loved. Love had released his soul from 
superstition and the thraldom of custom. Love 
shatters all but its own bonds. 

In the eyes of the girl herself lay no happiness, 
only an overpowering fear, fear of the mother-in- 
law. 

A few minutes later Doctor Grace held a little 
crying baby in her arms. The mother-in-law walked 
over to Doctor Grace and inspected the baby. She 
gave it one swift glance, folded her arms, and sniffed. 

"Female," she said. "Take the little dog out 
of my sight." 

"Give her to me," said Li Ta Ta; "I am the 
mother of girls." 

Li himself gave not a thought to the baby but 
possessed himself of one of Jewel's listless hands and 
stroked it softly. 

"It is all right," he said, his face shining with 
relief. "Pau Tsu is well." 

It was dawn. The room was filled with a pallid 
light that made the innumerable candle flames but 
bits of sickly color on the tables and stools. The 
women suddenly looked tired. An amah went 
around blowing out the candles. Day had come 
with the new life, but the bride lay weeping in her 
crimson curtained bed. 



XV 
THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 

THE case of the Li bride utterly demoralized 
me. When we got back to the compound 
I found a letter from Edward, which I put 
under my pillow, and then I cried myself to sleep. 
Doctor Grace had arranged to let me sleep late, but 
she got up in an hour or two to go to work. About 
eleven, I got up and dressed and took my letter out 
on to the back steps of the cottage to read again and 
again. It comforted me somewhat but not thor- 
oughly, for I had had a revelation of the abyss of 
difference between the thoughts and lives of men 
and women. Li Ta Ta and I, women of the East 
and West, born of different races, separated by 
centuries of education, were yet nearer together in 
feeling and understanding than Edward and L All 
the sweet things he said — how much did he mean 
of them? And did he interpret them as I did? 
Moreover, even if he meant them, could he keep his 
promises? I had an illuminating glimpse into the 
fundamental variation of men from women. I had 
a new grasp of the stuff out of which we women must 
weave our happiness. I did not want to achieve a 
happiness like the happiness of Li Ta Ta, a happi- 
ness of doing without love, a happiness of renun- 



i68 MY CHINESE DAYS 

ciation. Before Edward came it was different. I 
was thrown into a turmoil of emotion. 

I was upset the entire week. The haunting 
remembrance of the wives of Li would not leave me. 
Saturday afternoon Doctor Grace arranged an out- 
ing in a Chinese house boat. Quite a party of us 
were going. A basket of sandwiches and cake was 
put in the boat, with a teapot and teacups. We 
were going to land at the Coffin House and have tea 
in the Court of the Tortoises. We went through the 
city by one of the larger canals, and again I ex- 
perienced that strange altering of values that comes 
with the transfer from the land view to the water 
view. Through the beautiful arches we floated. 
The water was still, and the arch of the bridge and 
its reflection below made a perfect circle. As if 
suspended in air, we pierced the heart of circle after 
circle. The banks along the canal were built up 
with stone ramparts, now a foot or two in height, 
now six or eight feet above us. Sometimes paths 
bordered the canal, and sometimes the houses 
abutted on the water, their small windows opening 
directly over the canal. I saw the tall devil gates, 
placed across the road from the main entrance to 
the houses, to prevent the entrance of evil spirits. 
Spirits in China have some hard and fixed, fantastic 
characteristics. They can only go in a straight 
line ! So any pious man is safe from their visitation 
if he builds a false door that stands in front of the 
real entrance like a fire screen. By this ingenious 
contrivance that portion of the highway that runs 
between the devil gate and the house, becomes 



THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 169 

appropriated as a legitimate part of the front yard. 
The men of the family sit in its protection and 
smoke their pipes ; the children play about in its 
security. 

The canal traffic was not very heavy. On the 
outskirts of the town we passed a fisher boat. The 
man lived on it with his wife and entire family. 
The house boat was a long, narrow boat of the 
regulation type, varnished, with a hood of woven 
bamboo over its center. All the family activities 
were carried on within this hood. When a river 
man takes a river woman to wife, the only change in 
the life of the woman is to step across from the boat 
of her father to the boat of her husband. Drifting 
up and down stream, now to the coasts of Shanghai, 
now winding miles deep into the interior, they fish 
and live and eat and die. Time enough they have 
to become river philosophers ! On they float, in 
the night, slipping from the close, peopled walls of 
the city, out through the open meadows, up and up, 
to the hills. 

Our fisherman was fishing. With his back to the 
water, he stood on the stern of the boat which 
projected far out. Lithe and squat, he gathered up 
the circular net in both hands. Standing at the 
extreme edge of the boat, the heels of his bare feet 
stuck out over the last plank, he pulled the center 
of the net into his left hand and caught Its ruffled 
circumference, like an open mouth, in his right. A 
moment he swung poised for action. Then with a 
swift pirouette, he bent and whirled around, swinging 
the net around his shoulders like a lasso. Holding 



170 MY CHINESE DAYS 

the center fast in his left hand, he flung the wide-open 
mouth of the net far out upon the water. With 
a splash it spread out its enticing coils. The corks 
on its circumference bobbed hither and thither in a 
dancing ring. A hoop of ripples ran towards the 
shore. The man drew in the net very slowly. Taut, 
its mouth still in the water, its center held firmly in 
the fisherman's left hand, it hung like a gigantic 
cobweb, shining and sparkling in the air. Here and 
there the silver bellies of fish caught the light. The 
fisherman dropped the folds of the net at his feet, 
and his wife picked off the fish and tossed them into 
a wicker basket. Then the fisherman poised him- 
self for another throw. Balancing delicately over 
the water, he gathered up the net in orderly, precise 
folds. Again he stooped with marvelous speed and 
grace, whirled, and flung out his net upon the water. 
Never have I seen any motion so beautiful. Not 
even Pavlova could rival that fisherman of the 
canal. Again and again we watched him, spell- 
bound by the rhythmic grace and strength of his 
motions. His wife, more nonchalant than he, 
looked up from her task of picking out the fish with 
incurious eyes. Several children gazed at us with 
frank interest. 

"Are all the fishermen as clever as this one?" I 
asked. 

"Oh, yes," said Doctor Grace. "They don't 
seem to know that they are doing anything beautiful. 
Of course a skilful one knows that he throws unerr- 
ingly, tirelessly, but I have never seen any one take 
pleasure in the grace of the motion. That is a 



THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 171 

queer thing about China, at least about this part of 
China. The people don't seem to enjoy motion or 
watching motion and they are very appreciative of 
all other kinds of beauty." 

I could hardly bear to let the boat go away. The 
swift bend, the sudden turn, and the lightning-like 
casting of the fisherman's net put a spell on me. At 
last Doctor Grace laughed and ordered the oarsman 
to go ahead. 

"You can come any day to see the net-casters," 
she said ; "we can't lose this whole lovely afternoon 
for one fisherman." 

We got out of the boat at the foot of a flight of 
temple steps. A long avenue of trees led up to an 
ancient temple and pagoda. This avenue was 
literally lined with peach trees and willows — and 
beggars. It seemed as if all the most forlorn speci- 
mens of humanity had elected to live along that 
approach. Upon looking closer, I saw that, though 
some were really deformed and disfigured, their 
real claim to beggardom lay in their clothes ; women 
with babies swung like amulets around their necks, 
hoary sages with beards to their belts. And a lusty 
horde of youngsters bounded out from the shade of 
the trees to meet us, crying for coppers. Doctor 
Grace scattered a handful of cash among them. The 
boatman shooed them away, and we were allowed to 
proceed in peace. Two devil-catcher poles, slim and 
crimson, and girdled near the summits with their up- 
curling, devil-catching baskets, guarded the entrance. 

We went through the famous gateway of the 
pagoda. Names of students, some dead, some 



172 MY CHINESE DAYS 

famous, were scrawled in true tourist fashion over 
all the reachable space of the lower walls. The 
breath of antiquity hung about its fading frescoes 
and moss-covered stones. Up and up it soared into 
the air, higher than anything in the surrounding 
land. Its series of diminishing galleries had the 
airy grace of perfect proportion. The Tiger Temple 
had fallen into ruins. Nothing but an entrance and 
an altar remained. 

A file of priests, heralded by drums and pipes, 
wound down the street and passed us, through the 
temple entrance. Boys, in the costume of acolytes, 
marched ahead, carrying drums and bundles of 
silver and gold paper money. A paper ricksha, a 
servant in paper effigy, bowls of food and incense 
were carried in great pomp. Through the dark 
gateway the procession filed. The priests, in robes 
of lush green and pigeon-blood red, marched to the 
altar and offerings of money and furniture and 
clothes were piled in a heap on its ancient stones. 
The priests began a weird chant, which fell with the 
subtle charm of an incantation on the air. In its 
mournful intervals I caught echoes of the song of 
the priests around the warm grave. It was the 
chant for the dead, and it filled the ruined courts 
of the Tiger Temple with strange, forgotten echoes. 
The moving circle of priests came to a standstill 
around the altar piled high with its paper offerings. 
The high priest stepped out from the circle and set 
a light to the offerings. The sudden blaze whirled 
and eddied upward from the altar stones. The 
priests began again their slow circling around and 



\ THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 173 

around the burning offering, chanting the same 
weird incantation. Heedless, the little acolytes 
whispered among themselves ; the bystanders talked 
and chatted. Perhaps, in that throng, we were the 
most impressed. The burning sacrifice, the chant- 
ing, circling priests, the flaunting colors of em- 
broidery and satin under the streaming sunlight, in 
the ruined courts of the Temple, gave me a sudden 
feeling of the reality of religion. It was not their 
religion, or my religion, that I felt ; it was universal 
religion, the striving upward of all mankind to the 
Truth beyond. 

While the ashes still glowed on the hearthstone 
of the ancient altar, the priests wound away, through 
the gateway, down again to the streets of the 
city. The onlookers drifted apart, and the temple 
court was deserted but for us and the glowing 
ashes. I felt a curious reluctance to leave until the 
last spark had died ; it did not seem fitting to go 
chattering on our way, while the sacrifice still glowed. 

At last I turned away. In the shadow of the 
deep stone gateway stood Edward. The sudden 
sight of him set my heart beating strangely. I 
wanted to run to him and have him catch me up in 
his arms, but, of course, I did nothing of the kind. 
I pretended I was just ordinarily pleased to see him. 

"How did you get here ?" I asked. 

"How should anybody get here?" he said. "I 
had some business in Woosih and stopped off for 
the afternoon. At the compound they told me that 
if I took a donkey to the Tiger Temple I should 
catch you here." 



174 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Edward's coming made the queerest difference 
to me. All the things that I had been bothering 
about all the week were suddenly insignificant. 
They seemed to me foolish thoughts. A whirl 
of merriment seized the company, as we climbed 
back again into our house boat. The oarsman at 
the stern, on the other side of the bamboo hood, was 
out of sight and forgotten. The boat seemed to 
move of itself, to have a life of its own. We spread 
an old steamer rug on the boards of the prow and 
sat on the floor, dangling our feet over the edge of 
the boat. Edward sat behind me, and our fingers 
met on the gunwale. How can the mere touch of 
fingers solve all the problems of the universe ! 

We were on the inner moat. On one side towered 
the great wall against the sky, cutting the serene 
blue with its jagged, warlike outline ; on the other 
lay the city. Every time we pierced the heart of a 
bridge and its reflection, I drew a quick breath of 
delight. 

"Do you like it so much?" asked Edward. 

I nodded. 

"Shall I bring you here on your honeymoon?" 
he whispered. 

I shook my head. 

"Why not, if you like it so much?" he asked. 

" I want to go to a new place," I answered, "where 
I have never been before, where I have never had 
any other thoughts, where I have never seen things 
without you." 

"Where?" he asked. 

"How should I know?" I replied. 



THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 175 

" Do you want it to be a surprise ? " he asked. 

"Of course," I answered. 

" I know a place," he-whispered in my ear, bending 
forward over my shoulder, " I know a place where we 
can go to-morrow. Will you come?" 

"To-morrow?" I gasped. "No, no, I am not 
ready. I have so much to tell you. I must have 
more time to think things out." 

Edward looked at me curiously. 

"It's no use trying to think things out," he said. 
" Haven't you found that out by this time ? Life 
isn't so clear that thought can pierce it. We must 
go ahead and feel our way through. Tell me what 
has been troubling you." 

So I told him about Li Ta Ta and the last bride 
and the fears their fate had aroused in me. Edward 
listened attentively. I felt better when I had told 
him about them. All the week I had been unable 
to write their story, and the harboring of it had be- 
come a secret which oppressed me like a treachery, it 
had filled me with such disloyal, suspicious thoughts. 

"What do you think about it?" I asked. 

"I can't tell you here," Edward said. "I must 
have you alone to tell you." 

He unclasped his fingers from mine and drew 
back. His eyes were very tender, not reproachful, 
but that little action of his made me feel very forlorn 
and abandoned. A new realization entered my 
consciousness — my utter need of his love. Work 
and independence, how passionately I had wanted 
them ! And now I was ready to cast them away 
for the touch of a man's fingers. Whatever the 



176 MY CHINESE DAYS 

future might hold, I knew what I wanted now. I 
slipped my hand back along the boards and found 
Edward's fingers. Then I was quite satisfied. 

"See that wall along the inner side of the canal?" 
said Doctor Grace. "That is the Coffin House." 

A low strip of wet green grass ran down to the 
water's edge. Willows, very old, with their weeping 
fronds trailing in the water, stood like mournful 
sentinels along the narrow path that led from the 
water to the walled house. Just beyond were rice 
fields and two lazy buffaloes, each watched by a 
little boy. We moored our boat and got out. Be- 
fore us rose a square, walled house, blind and 
windowless. A gatekeeper let us pass without chal- 
lenge. A series of three open courts led to the pool 
of the House of the Dead, where the ancient tortoises 
played. Around the courts were rows and rows of 
cells filled with coffins, waiting to be buried. Some- 
times the coffins wait in the House of the Dead a 
hundred years, till the soothsayer foretells an 
auspicious day for burying, or until the family can 
afford the money for a fortunate place of burial. 
There were big coffins, — black, with gorgeous 
sprawling dragons in gilt on the lid, — little baby 
coffins, the size of a doll's trunk, rich coffins of teak, 
and cheap ones of ash roughly put together. Row 
after row, tier above tier, the chambers were filled 
with the coffined bodies of the dead. The dead and 
the stars always give me a feeling of the preciousness 
and futility of living. I always want to live more 
than ever. As in the catacombs of Latin countries, 
these dead shivered to decay above the ground. 



THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 177 

We came at last to the inner court and the Pool 
of the Tortoises. There were really two pools, 
linked by a low flat bridge. A lattice of fretwork 
ran around the four sides of the pool. Slippery, 
moss-green steps of stone rose up from underneath 
the brown water. Ancient weeping willows grew in 
the open earth between the irregular flagging. Half 
the pool was in shadow and half in sunlight. The 
still water was a golden brown, the slanting beams 
of the sun penetrating but a short distance beneath 
its surface. I stood at the top of the steps, over- 
come by the silence, by the walls honeycombed with 
the dead past, and by the ancient mystery of the 
pools. 

I had no feeling of being in a Campo Santo with 
its subtle benediction, but rather of being in a home 
of disembodied spirits who had not j^et found rest and 
peace for their souls. Snatches of the gatekeeper's 
words drifted in to me as he showed the others some 
famous coffin. 

"He was the richest man in Soochow. He had 
ten wives. His youngest wife died upon his body. 
People said she was forced to kill herself. She took 
opium. They were buried in the same cofifin. Yes, 
this very coffln that you are looking at. The family 
have never been able to bury it. Whenever a 
fortune teller is called in to cast the charm 
and decide where and when to bury it, he cannot 
find a fortunate day. So it has been for a hundred 
years. See how well the wood has kept. The 
colors are still as bright as when they were first 
painted. The priests say that he does not want to 



178 MY CHINESE DAYS 

be buried, that his spirit interferes with the casting 
of the burying spell. He likes it here in the house 
of the dead. He likes the warm sunshine when it 
slants in during the early morning and touches the 
foot of his coffin. He likes the cool and shade in 
the hot summer days. He likes to feel the feet of 
the living walking past him and to hear their cheerful 
voices. And he likes the little body of his slave-wife 
lying against him in the close warm darkness. In 
the ground he would long ago have moldered and 
withered. Only last year the family took the lid 
off and saw the two lying clasped in each other's 
arms. They were very gorgeous, he in his official 
mandarin robes, she dressed as a bride. She was 
very young. She had not yet borne a child, and the 
Mandarin loved her. The other wives were jealous. 
I think she was glad to die. It was an act of 
devotion. Once at twilight I sat alone at the gate 
smoking my long pipe and thinking of nothing at all. 
All the women and children had gone home. Soon 
I too would go home to my little house at the end of 
the field, to a good hot supper of rice and fish. But 
there was still a little time to watch. The sun had 
not yet set. I knew it by the pink light on the clouds, 
though within the city walls all was long ago in 
shade. The water in the moat was running faster 
than its wont. The branches of the willows made 
a little rippling sound as they dipped in the water. 
On the other side of the wall I heard the cries of 
birds. Overhead flew a flock of crows, one by one, 
in a black stream across the pink sky, crying loudly. 
" Light shone dimly in the open rooms of the houses 



THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 179 

along the road. The pink in the sky faded. The 
heavens became a clear, quivering green. Overhead 
one star shone. It was time to close the House of 
the Dead for the night. I emptied my pipe and 
went in to close the gate. The courts were already 
dark. I walked through the three outer courts, to the 
Pool of the Tortoises. In the twilight I could not 
distinguish their backs. I threw them their evening 
offering of sweet cakes. I could not see, but I heard 
the waters move. I knew just how the sacred 
tortoises were gobbling up the little morsels of food. 
The water, stirred by their rushing bodies, swished 
against the stone steps. I stood there waiting a mo- 
ment or so. 

" Out of the deepest shadows under the ancient 
willows came a low soft laugh. It sounded like the 
laugh of a happy young girl or of a child that has 
never known sorrow. I wanted to laugh too, with- 
out knowing why. I tossed a second handful of cake 
crumbs into the unseen water. Again I heard the 
commotion of the eating tortoises. But the gay 
child's laugh came not again. Instead I saw two 
shadows underneath the willow. My eyes had 
grown accustomed to the twilight. I saw them 
quite distinctly. One was an old man, stooping, in 
the long-sleeved gown of a mandarin. The other was 
a young girl in the finery of a pleasure girl. They 
were holding hands and leaning over the lattice to 
look at the water. The turmoil in the water sub- 
sided. The tortoises sank into motionlessness. The 
two figures glided around the cloisters, the girl 
leading the old man by the hand. I was afraid to 



i8o MY CHINESE DAYS 

move. I stood quite still, and they passed me with- 
out seeing me. A cool breath of air struck against 
me and I shivered. I watched them. They came 
out into the second court and stood beside this 
coffin, I looked again but they were gone. Other 
people had seen them too. Oftenest it is a slave- 
girl bride who sees the Mandarin's bride. They 
say she smiles and beckons. Then the bride dies. 
It is very bad luck to see the girl alone." 

The voice of the gatekeeper ceased. For half a 
moment it was silent in the second court, and in the 
court of the Pool of the Tortoises. Then in the 
outer court talking broke out again. Still no one 
came in. My eyes, half staring and unseeing, were 
fixed on the sunlit space of the water. Suddenly it 
moved and heaved, and a great golden back came 
into sight. Another and another rose into view. 
Eight or ten huge tortoises, their backs mottled in 
gleams of yellow and brown, ruffled the pool with a 
thousand ripples. Centuries old, pampered and 
protected, fed cake and sweetmeats by the hands 
of countless generations, they lived on from age 
to age. I looked at their beautifully marked and 
tinted backs with awe. What had they not seen ! 
Even the ghosts of the Mandarin who cannot 
be buried and his slave were not as old as the turtles. 
The mystery of the pool was a thousandfold in- 
tensified by the appearance of these animals who 
seemed to have lived forever. 

A babel of tongues broke out in the outer court. 
A bevy of Chinese women and children entered the 
Court of the Pool. There were several high-born 



THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD i8i 

women, innumerable amahs and coolies carrying 
babies and baskets of food. 

They looked at me with interest and in a moment 
I had recognized them as belonging to the family of 
Li. Li Ta Ta was there, and the peasant wife from 
the north, and the Favorite. An amah followed her 
closely, carrying her baby girl in her arms. The 
women were accompanied by a countless number of 
children. 

"Let us eat together," Li Ta Ta said. "Will the 
foreign-born teacher honor us by eating of our 
humble food?" 

Doctor Grace and the others joined us. We 
combined our food and exchanged egg sandwiches 
for dough balls. The children were provided with 
little paper bags full of soft cakes to throw to the 
tortoises. They led me to the other side of the 
bridge where not only willows grew but vines of 
wisteria as thick as my waist. "The color of the 
sky," said Li Ta Ta, "and sweet as a field of beans." 

The children laughed and fed the turtles just as 
little American children feed the bears with peanuts. 
It was like going to the circus to them. I was 
fascinated by the face of the bride. LI Ta Ta 
stood by the lattice with the children. Edward and 
Doctor Grace left again to explore a ruined pagoda 
behind the house, and I moved over beside the girl. 
She was very pale, with blue stains under her eyes. 
Her lips were the beautiful lips of a Chinese child, 
the upper lip very full In the center and deeply 
curved. She was carefully painted, spots of rouge 
on each cheek and In the middle of her chin. She 



i82 MY CHINESE DAYS 

had taken her baby from the amah and held it in her 
arms. 

"The little dog," she said, looking at it tenderly. 
" If she had only been a little boy, the mother-in-law- 
would have called her the Little Prince." 

"Never mind the mother-in-law," I said. "She is 
your Little Princess." 

"It cannot be," said the bride. "She will be a 
little slave. I know about slaves," she continued. 
"Li Sien San bought me in a slave house in Shanghai. 
My father was a scholar. One day he went into 
Shanghai to meet a friend. This friend had become 
an opium eater, though father knew it not. Father 
was gone a month, and when he came back he 
brought opium with him. At first he smoked 
secretly, but soon he did not care what we thought 
any more. He smoked openly. Mother implored 
him on her knees to give it up, and so did his old 
mother. But he wouldn't. Already, in a few 
months, he loved the opium better than mother and 
wife and children. His mother died with a broken 
heart. My father sold everything we possessed. 
By day and by night he lay on the couch and 
smoked. He grew thin ; the bones seemed to 
stretch his skin, so dry and shrunken had it become. 
He apprenticed my brother to a weaver. This 
broke my mother's heart, for my brother was to 
have been a scholar like my father. Soon that 
money was all gone too. Then father ordered 
mother to make for me beautiful clothes and pre- 
pare for a journey. 'I will take her to Shanghai,* 
he said. 'Her beauty is worth much gold.' Mother 



THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 183 

and I knew what that meant, but we dared not 
disobey. Day after day we stitched on the fatal, 
beautiful clothes, such clothes as I should have had 
were I to be married in honor. Father set the day 
for departure. That night mother slipped her 
hand under father's pillow where he kept the 
precious store of opium, and stole a handful. She 
got up and boiled hot water on the charcoal stove 
and made herself a cup of opium tea. Then she 
lay down beside father again and slept. In the 
morning, when father found she was dead, he was 
very angry. 'Now she will haunt me forever,' he 
said. Sometimes she haunts me too," said Pau Tsu. 
"In the slave house in Shanghai I used to see her 
sitting sorrowfully by the side of my bed. I learned 
many things there, too many to understand." 

"Are you happy now?" I asked. 

"How should I be happy?" she asked. "My 
child is a girl." 

"But your husband loves you," I said. 

Pau Tsu smiled faintly. "What is the love of a 
man?" she said. "Other men have also loved me, 
and it did not make me happy. No, it is not enough. 
He must love me for something more than sons. I 
am very tired." 

I tried to cheer her up. I talked of all sorts of 
things, of the mission school and what she could do 
for her baby girl. To all my suggestions she offered 
the same reply. "It is impossible. The mother- 
in-law would not permit it." 

She was so armored in misery that I could not 
reach her. Yet she was not rebellious or complain- 



i84 MY CHINESE DAYS 

ing. Life was so, and she found it bitter. Then 
suddenly she touched my arm. 

"See," she said, pointing across the pool at the 
shadow of the ancient willow. "See, the Man- 
darin's slave girl. She stands close against the 
trunk of the tree, half hidden by it, and beckons to 
me with her hand." 

I looked across the pool. Already the opposite 
side of the court was dark with purple and blue 
shadows. The willows were misty gray like olive 
trees. The water was a fathomless slate color. 
The tortoises had sunk out of sight, or else floated 
motionless, with their backs just above the surface 
of the water, hardly distinguishable from the water 
itself. I looked up at the sky. A pink gauze veil 
was drawn across it. Directly overhead hung one 
silver star. Pau Tsu and I were alone beside the 
pool. Cool and mysterious with its dead people and 
its living tortoises, the court grew darker and darker. 

"Listen," said Pau Tsu, now grasping my arm 
tightly. "I hear her laughing." 

But under the willow I saw only the gathering 
mists of the evening and in the hollow court I heard 
only the soft stir of the evening wind and the lap- 
ping of the dead brown water against the moss- 
green stones. 



XVI 

THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 

YOU will have plenty of time to walk to the 
incubator on the way to the feast at Li's," 
said Doctor Grace. " I will meet you there 
at seven." 

Edward and I started ofT on foot. He had been 
prevailed upon to spend the night. Before we had 
left the House of the Dead yesterday, Li Ta Ta 
had Invited us to a feast this evening. All the 
morning we had sat on the water steps under the 
old camphor trees and watched the boats drift by 
on the inner moat. Edward had almost talked me 
out of my obsession of fear — almost, but not 
quite. But I managed for the moment to banish 
my worries and just be happy In the shared sunshine. 
Now we started off gaily on my first walk through 
the intricate streets of Soochow. Doctor Grace 
had given me elaborate directions, and with Edward 
I feared no adventure. 

The streets were vivid with the coming and going 
of Oriental life. At the nearest corner stood a chow 
man. He had put down his wood and wicker stand, 
which he carried on his shoulder, and was fanning his 
charcoal fire into a flame. We stopped to watch 
him. Half a dozen ragged urchins had already 



i86 MY CHINESE DAYS 

gathered about him. Tea and dough balls and cakes 
were his stock in trade. A boy swaggered forward 
with a brass cash in his open palm. They bargained 
vociferously as to how much that brass cash would 
buy. When that was settled at last to the satis- 
faction of all the bystanders, the boy and the 
food vendor cast their fingers for the cash or the 
food, while with bated breath the crowd watched 
the proceeding. The boy won. He pocketed his 
cash, and the vendor handed over the stipulated 
amount of sweetmeats. A delighted shout went up 
from the boys, and another, emboldened by the 
luck of the first, unearthed a cash, and the process 
was repeated. Again the boy won. The vendor 
was not in the least disturbed, but repeated the 
gambling again and again. The crowd around him 
grew denser. Luck was with the boys. The interest 
of the ragamuffins was intense. I watched them 
give the signal and fling out their fingers. They were 
more interested in the gambling than in the food, 
and the vendor more in the game than in his business. 

"I'd like to try my luck," said Edward. 

"Oh! you mustn't," I said. "It would be a 
bad example." 

Edward pinched my arm. " Don't be afraid ; I'm 
not going to. I was just stating my unregenerate 
feelings. One can't help admiring such a simple and 
ingenious way of adding zest to existence." 

Along the banks of the many canals women were 
washing the evening rice. They crouched on the 
last step of the water stairs and dipped a woven 
bowl, full of rice kernels, into the muddy stream. 



THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 187 

On other steps were women washing dirty clothes. 
From a house yet further down the stream I saw 
an amah empty a bucket of foul water into the same 
canal. 

"Isn't it sickening," I said. "I don't under- 
stand how they can do it. How can they have any 
appetite for their food?" 

"Don't try to understand," said Edward, "at 
least not this afternoon. Just enjoy the picture 
they make — the long brown canal, the flights of 
stone steps, the bending women at the water's 
edge. H you were Murillo, that is what you would 
see." 

"But can one choose what one will see ? " I asked. 

"Of course one can," said Edward. "It's foolish 
to see what you can't help. It spoils enjoyment." 

"You are a pagan," I said. 

"Ah, no !" answered Edward. "That is a super- 
ficial remark. I object to being called pagan merely 
because I enjoy the world. 'Weltschmerz' was an 
epoch of feeling. We've left it behind us and come 
out into the Joylands again." 

I looked at Edward wonderingly. He had never 
before spoken in that manner to me. Our court- 
ship had been a matter of physical delight and 
shared experiences rather than shared thoughts. I 
grew a little shy of him. This Edward I didn't 
know at all. 

We went through the Street of the Satin Weavers, 
where Edward could hardly drag me along, into the 
Street of the Jade Cutters, where the hum of the 
grindstones filled the air like the sound of countless 



i88 MY CHINESE DAYS 

bees, and out to a market place near one of the gates 
in the wall. Here a building, larger than the others, 
caught our eyes at once. It was higher and of 
weather-beaten brick. At the door a workman wel- 
comed us. He seemed to know our errand by in- 
tuition, or perhaps by experience, for the Incubator 
at Soochow is one of the sights of the city. Within 
we found ourselves in a large room, filled with small 
ovens made of clay and straw. In each oven was a 
shelf on which lay the eggs. A coolie walked 
leisurely around, blowing at a bed of dying charcoal, 
or banking down one that flamed too brightly. 
The next room was the most interesting. Above 
our heads, in long shallow bunks, under the ceiling, 
were laid hatching eggs. I had to climb up on a 
stool to see the shelves. They were covered, some 
with padded cotton comforts, just as if the eggs 
were persons, and some with layers of warm thick 
straw. The uppermost bunk was the hottest. 
Bigger ovens heated this room. Standing on 
the stool brought my head just on a level with 
the surface of the lowest shelf. This one was 
covered with yellow straw. "Peep, Peep", I heard 
the sound everywhere. Through the straw I saw 
myriads of gaping yellow beaks sticking up for air 
and food. Every moment another head appeared. 
By listening closely I fancied I heard the soft 
breaking of countless eggshells. A chick was born 
every second ! And this had been going on from 
time immemorial ! On one shelf a brood of fluffy, 
feathery chicks were feeding. Soft and yellow and 
warm, they ran about gaily. I wanted one. 



THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 189 

"How much?" I asked. 

"The big one, one cent," the egg-hatcher answered. 
"The Httle new ones only a half a cent." 

"What would you do with it?" asked Edward. 

"I'd take it to the Li children to play with," I 
said. 

"Then you shan't have one," said Edward. "The 
children would only tease it and neglect it. It is 
much better off here." 

I knew it was, so I didn't insist. Children can be 
so cruel without meaning to. I walked around the 
two rooms again, looking at the smooth, round white 
eggs in their little shallow pans over the charcoal 
stove, warming themselves to life, and at the myriads 
of hatching chicks peeping in the straw. Thousands, 
tens of thousands of little, fluffy, downy chicks coming 
to life every day ! The old egg-hatcher was amused 
at my pleasure. 

"Plenty good business," he said, "but no good 
for sleeping." 

On the way to the house of Li we ran across the 
workshop of a potter and his son. They sat in 
the open front room of the house. A daughter or 
the son's wife sat on a narrow settle in the sun before 
the house, embroidering a pair of blue satin slippers. 
On a dark, stained table behind her were three 
covered cups of tea and a brass hot-water kettle. 
Along one side of the room were rows of shallow 
shelves on which stood vases of blue and white 
plum-blossom pattern. The boy was not working, 
only the old man sat at his wheel and molded the 
wet clay. 



igo MY CHINESE DAYS 

"Let's watch just one half minute," I said to 
Edward. "It fascinates me to see the shape 
emerge." 

The old man looked up from his wheel. He had 
a benevolent, kindly smile ; his eyes looked pre- 
occupied. From the wet mound of clay at his side 
he pulled off a lump and stuck it on his revolving 
wheel. He looked up again at us, but his fingers 
went on shaping the wet mass of clay. Not once 
did he glance at the evolving vase, but as if by magic, 
under his caressing fingers, the formless lump took 
form and shape. It sprang up, it hollowed itself 
within, it curved in at the neck and flared out at the 
mouth, all in the twinkling of an eye, while the an- 
cient past-master of his art looked at us with his 
benevolent, kindly eyes. The girl and the boy 
stopped in their work to watch the exhibition. 

"Perfect," I cried. 

"Marvelous," said Edward, with genuine admira- 
tion. 

The boy spoke to the girl rapidly. She put 
down her embroidery and came up and stood beside 
us. 

"My husband tells me to say to you that our 
father is blind. Long ago when he was a young man 
he worked in the great pottery factories up the river 
at Ching tuh Chen. He was one of the most expert. 
After many years, little white stones grew in his 
eyes. We came down here to the foreign doctors 
to have them taken out, but it was useless ; even the 
foreign-born magician could not make him see again. 
Then, for many moons, father sat in the sun and 



THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 191 

the shade and mourned. A sorrowful spirit entered 
into him. One day, while he sat in the shade 
mourning, I went and found a lump of clay and put it 
in his hands. He pulled and twisted and patted it 
because he loved to feel of it in his fingers. At 
night, when my husband came back, the father 
pulled his ear down against his lips and whispered 
into it. 'It is a great foolishness,' said my hus- 
band to me in the night, ' but we must get it for him. 
He wants a potter's wheel.' 

"So we sent up river by some friends of ours for a 
wheel exactly like the ones he had used in his youth. 
Even before the wheel came, a wonderful change 
came over father. He smiled to himself as he sat 
in the sun and the shade, and pressed his lump of 
clay now this way, now that. At last the day came 
that the wheel was set up in the room just as you 
see it now, and the pleasant sound of its whirring 
filled the house. Father touched it all over, piece 
by piece, as a mother would touch the face of her 
child. My husband and I stood by him, pleased. 
I handed him a fresh lump of clay, for we had also 
sent for a boatload of some of the up-river earth. 
He stuck it on the wheel. Around flew the wheel. 
Father's fingers felt their way magically from curve 
to curve. It was a vase. Then it was my honor- 
able man had the idea of making it a business. We 
call them the 'lucky vases', because a blind man 
makes them. That was five years ago, and now 
our business is good. We have money enough 
to send our two boys and our one girl to the 
mission school to learn the wisdom of the world. 



192 MY CHINESE DAYS 

And now you see that father smiles and is happy 
all the day long." 

We bought a lucky vase. 

" Did you notice what made him happy, Edward ? " 
I asked. "It was work." 

Edward didn't notice where my question was 
leading. "Yes," he said, "a man must have his 
work." 

"And what about a woman?" I asked. 

"A woman has love," he said, "and home and 
babies." 

"It is not enough," I said to myself but not 
aloud to Edward. 

Even these mental words startled me. They were 
the identical words of the Favorite Bride of Li. I 
was carried swiftly back to the twilight Pool of 
the Tortoises, when she and I stood beside the 
lattice, bending over the dim brown water. "It is 
not enough," she had said, when I reminded her 
of the love of Li. I understood her perfectly. It 
was not enough. We were like chrysalises tearing 
our way with pain and sorrow out from a silken 
cocoon. Love said, "Stay inside where it is soft 
and silken and warm. " Ah ! it was a temptation. 

But none of these things did I say to Edward. He 
would not have understood ; he would only have 
thought I was foolish and fanciful and didn't know 
my own mind. Perhaps I didn't. Perhaps the 
bride of Li didn't know what she wanted. She 
thought it was a son, I thought it was work. We 
both only knew that the silken cocoon was not 
enough. 



THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 193 

The swift southern night was upon us when we 
reached the House of Li. It was decked as for a 
festival : gorgeous lanterns hung at each side of the 
gate, as long as a man and as round as a barrel. 
Their yellow candle flames shining through the red 
paper cast a mellow glow over the doorway. The 
servants, in fresh, white, long garments, waited to 
receive us. Smaller lanterns hung about the garden. 
The guest hall was draped in crimson hangings, and 
tall red tapers flared on the ancestral table at the 
end of the room, facing the open threshold of the 
hall. The mother-in-law, Li Sien San, and his 
wives and children were assembled to greet us, 
making a modification of true Chinese etiquette in 
allowing the women to share in the reception. 
Doctor Grace was already there. For the feast we 
separated, the men eating in the great hall itself and 
we having a room adjoining. Doctor Grace sat at 
the table of honor with the mother-in-law, and I sat 
at the next table with Li Ta Ta and the fourth wife. 
The bare tables were as clean as fresh snow. At 
each place were placed chopsticks and a small 
spoon with a short handle of ancient pewter. The 
servants brought in the first dish, a bowl of clear 
soup with a single pigeon's egg floating in it. The 
white of the egg had a translucent appearance like 
the look of milky blue opal. The Chinese balanced 
the egg delicately on their chopsticks. I tried it 
too, but halfway to my mouth it fell back into the 
bowl of soup with a geyserlike splash. I was 
chagrined, though I saw it really didn't matter. 
There was no tablecloth to ruin, and a damp towel 



194 MY CHINESE DAYS 

soon made my place as immaculate as before. 
When the larger bowls of stewed duck were brought 
in, Li Ta Ta and Pau Tsu vied with each other in 
helping me to tempting morsels. "Just a little, 
little more," Li Ta Ta would say, reaching out with 
her chopsticks to the bowl in the center of the table. 
She would fish around among the slices of meat till 
she found one especially savory, then convey it to 
my tiny saucer. There is something extremely 
gracious and hospitable in this Chinese manner of 
picking out a tempting morsel for the guest of honor. 
It is a relic of the days when hospitality was an art 
of life, and the host served, the servitors merely 
bringing in fresh food and clearing away the used 
dishes. The amahs and children sat at a third 
table in the same room. 

The mother-in-law made a sort of speech. She 
was talking only to Doctor Grace, but we all listened. 

"It is a great pleasure to me and my son Li to 
invite the foreign-born healers to our humble feast. 
The feast is to do honor to the foreigner, but not in 
honor of the little dog that has been born to the 
house, nor of its low-born mother. As for them, it 
would be better had they never been born." The 
mother-in-law cast a malevolent glance at Pau Tsu. 
I saw the girl shiver. From that time her manner 
changed. It was as if she had forgotten something 
unpleasant during the first part of the evening, and 
had been suddenly reminded of it. She sat silent 
and wordless and pushed away her food. The 
baby began to cry. The amah promptly began 
to nurse it, but still she cried. She refused to 



THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 195 

be comforted by food, turned away her head, and 
cried and cried. 

"Take the Httle dog out of my sight," said the 
mother-in-law. "Take it where I cannot hear the 
sound of its howHng." 

The amah hurried from the room with the waiHng 
baby. We heard the sound of its crying diminish, 
as an echo grows fainter and fainter. When we 
heard it no more, the house was strangely still, as if 
life had left it. Pau Tsu rose without a word and 
followed it from the room. We heard the patter, 
patter of her stilted feet through the uncarpeted 
rooms beyond. 

After that the food was tasteless to me, it choked 
me. I felt I was eating the poisoned dishes of an 
evil-eyed ogress. I strained my ears, listening for 
any sound of footsteps or voices in the rooms over- 
head. By and by the amah came in quietly. 

"The mistress sent me back to help with the 
serving," she said in Li Ta Ta's ear. "She herself 
has taken the infant and stilled her crying." 

On went the interminable feasting. Dish after 
elaborate dish was placed before us. At the next 
table Doctor Grace talked easily. Li Ta Ta talked 
to me, but I didn't hear a word of what she was 
saying. One thought filled my brain : I must man- 
age to slip out of the room and hunt through the 
silent upper stories of the house for the girl bride and 
her baby. I thought of Pau Tsu sitting upstairs, 
alone in her room, with her baby clasped in her 
arms, her eyes glazed with misery and bitterness. No 
one paid any attention to her prolonged absence. 



196 MY CHINESE DAYS 

We drank our last sip of the fragrant hot wine 
poured into tiny, thimble-sized bowls. We nibbled 
candied lotus buds. We wiped our hands and faces 
on the perfumed, steaming-hot towels. In the guest 
hall musicians began a weird, haunting tune. In 
the confusion of rising from the table, I managed to 
slip into the back room unobserved. A steep, ladder- 
like flight of steps confronted me. Holding my 
skirts high, lest I trip on them in front, I crept up 
the steps feeling like a thief. When a board creaked 
I stood still and held my breath, and looked over my 
shoulder to see if I were followed. At the top of 
the stairs I hesitated, not knowing which way to 
turn. The upper floor was deserted ; all the children 
and servants were down at the feasting. I listened, 
but no sound of breathing, not the rustle of a dress 
fold, helped me to decide which way to go. I took 
off my shoes. I couldn't have explained my wish 
for secrecy, I only knew that my errand would be 
frustrated by the accompaniment of any one else. 
To-day I knew that I could comfort Pau Tsu. I had 
gained the knowledge that comes of true sympathy. 
I knew I would be able to encourage her, only I 
must speak to her alone. Not that I had any solu- 
tion of her diflficulty to suggest to her, not at all. I 
had no solution for my own difficulty, yet I had 
sympathy and courage. 

I stole from room to room, no longer wondering 
which way to go. I went everywhere, even to the 
rooms of the servants connected with the main 
quarters of the house by a narrow balcony at the 
back. Room after room I found empty and without 



THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 197 

an occupant. Why didn't the baby cry again? I 
repeated my path of search, thinking I must have 
overlooked some retiring room. The floor was 
tenantless ! From below came the wailing strains of 
Chinese violins and the clear sound of a flute. Voices, 
merry and talking together, sounded in a gay babel. 
I looked from a window of the women's room on the 
second floor down upon the court in front of the 
guest hall. It was filled with servants. Our donkeys 
stood in the shadow of the gateway with their group 
of donkey boys squatted on the ground beside them. 
Two sedan chairs and their bearers were in another 
group. Beggars and a few curious stragglers were 
peeping through the gateway. Li Sien San and 
Edward reposed on the couch of honor, smoking. 
A blaze of light and warmth and rich color shot up 
into the black blue night from the scene below. A 
juggler stepped forward from the crowd. They 
surged about him, carrying him close before Edward 
and Li. I saw a bright green snake shot up into 
the air. The crowd shouted with delight. The 
amahs, emboldened by the preoccupation of the 
house, joined the fringe of the crowd. At the door- 
way of the feasting room of the women stood a 
group of the women of the house. 

A great fear suddenly turned me sick. The story 
of the gatekeeper at the House of the Dead, the 
unlucky vision of the bride that haunted the Pool 
of the Tortoises, and Pau Tsu's disappearance filled 
me with apprehension. Where could she be? I 
wanted to rush down into the midst of that feasting 
company and call out to Li, "You have lost your 



igS MY CHINESE DAYS 

Loved Pau Tsu." I pictured the commotion, the 
scattering of the musicians and the revelers. Yet 
more vividly I knew the anger of the mother-in-law. 
She would hate the girl more than ever and persecute 
her — that is, if she were living. 

I had hardly any hope left. Carefully, systemati- 
cally, I re-searched the rooms, pulling back the 
silken curtains at each bed, and peering into the 
dim recesses behind. I even slipped my hand in 
and ran it over the quilts, lest in the darkness of 
the candles I miss a still form. Bed after bed was 
empty. Three times I had searched the rooms. I 
stood still and pressed my hands over my beating 
heart. 

There was still the garden and the swiftly running 
river along its walls and the deep, deep well where 
the summer clouds lay like sky flakes in its mirror. 
Fear lent me wings ; I was out in the garden. 
Beyond the radius of the lanterns' glow, the shadows 
were black and gloomy. The moon was covered 
with thin clouds which raced across its surface, 
driven by a rising wind. The papery leaves of 
the young bamboo trees shivered. The cypresses 
hardly moved but cast their black shadows all about 
me. I ran to the water gate. It was barred, and 
I could not draw the bolts ; I crouched against it and 
listened. I hardly knew what I was listening for, 
perhaps a wail or the backward-floating cry of a 
child. I heard the soft, gentle swish-swish of the 
silent water and no more. I ran to the well and 
peered over. It lay, a shaft of impenetrable black- 
ness, before me, yet I waited. The wind rose, 



THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 199 

and the thin clouds covering the full moon were 
torn into shreds and scarfs of chiffon. Full and 
clear, shining like a silver shield, the moon freed 
herself of the cloudy drapery. Right down into 
the well it shone, as I peered over. Deep down I 
saw a face ; I thought it the reflection of my own. 
Fascinated, I looked and looked. I lifted up my 
hand and pushed back the hair from my face, but 
the mirrored face made no such jesture. I screamed 
with terror. Flying through the yard, I burst into 
the guest hall where the juggler still juggled, and 
the musicians played their weird, melancholy music. 

"Edward," I cried, "come." 

I caught his hands and ran with him through the 
garden to where the face still looked up at the sailing 
moon. It seemed to have moved. The moonlight 
shone on it with soft, tender beams. Beside it 
cuddled another, smaller, tiny face. 

They had found a sanctuary. 



XVII 
WHERE THERE'S A WILL! 

AFTER that dreadful night when we pulled 
little Pau Tsu and her drowned baby out 
of the well I sent Edward away. I was 
thrown into one of those crises of emotion and thought 
which we all have to pass through ; I was utterly 
unreasonable. It seemed to me that the only 
happiness for a woman lay in repudiating her woman- 
hood, in becoming a neuter sex like the bee-workers. 
I suppose I didn't think at all, I simply felt that I 
couldn't marry, at least not till the horrible impres- 
sion of the fate of the wives of Li had somewhat worn 
off. 

"rU wait as long as you want," said Edward, 
"only don't send me away. Let me be near you. 
Let me help you now when you need me." 

But I couldn't. "You have to go away," I said. 
"Oh ! not far, nor not for long, but so that I do not 
see you. When I see you, or when you put out 
your hand and touch me, I can't think. You must 
give me time to get hold of myself again. Surely, 
soon I will know what to do. But this is one of 
the places that a human being must fight through 
alone, if he wants to be an adult soul." 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 201 

So I sent him away, and the world turned to utter 
desolation. He left one morning, just walked out 
of the house and said he wouldn't be able to see me 
for a while, I had no address, I didn't know where 
he was going, or what he was going to do, or when 
he would come back. I suddenly found I had been 
very foolish to let him go like that, without knowing 
all about him. Doctor Donnellon and Miss Laurie 
were standing around us in the hall when he said 
good-by, so that I couldn't ask him anything. 
The days went by in a dragging dreariness. In 
those desolate hours I learned a great deal more about 
love than I had known before. I learned, for one 
thing, that work is only absorbing and satisfactory 
if the heart is securely anchored. I hated my work ; 
I forced hiyself out of bed every morning and dragged 
myself about the wards. The patients were so 
dirty and smelly ! It was such a hopeless task to 
cure them ! And even if I did cure them, there 
were so many more to be cured ! A never-ending 
stream of sick humanity came in at the gates. I 
wanted to lie in bed and do nothing, to eat less, 
and to pity myself. But the pressure of the daily 
routine saved me, gave me back my sanity again, 
though it came slowly, inch by inch, through the 
long months that followed. Doctor Donnellon 
went away on her vacation. Miss Laurie and I were 
left alone, and then even Miss Laurie went up-river 
to a Nurses' Conference. I was busy from morning 
to night. 

One afternoon Mrs. Maitland called with a new 
nurse. Mrs. Maitland is little and slim and has 



202 MY CHINESE DAYS 

been in China twenty-five years. When she first 
came out, she was a China Inland Mission worker, 
way up in the interior. Now she is in Shanghai 
and directs the poHcy of a chain of girls' boarding 
schools. I always liked Mrs. Maitland to come to 
see us. She was my ideal of what a missionary 
should be, not "goody-goody" at all, nor always 
preaching, but radiating something happy and peace- 
ful. The Chinese girls idolized her. 

"I've brought you a new probationer," she said. 
"E Tsung" (love and honor). 

The prettiest little Chinese girl shook hands with 
me. She had rosy cheeks and merry brown eyes 
and a very quick responsive smile. 

"She has rather an interesting history," continued 
Mrs. Maitland. "Almost twenty years ago, when 
I was in the interior, I was riding along the banks of 
a canal. It was in the summer, and the water in 
the canal had shrunk to a mere moving trickle of 
brown mud. The house boats had been left high 
and dry on the steep, shelving bank, and a veritable 
village of mat-sheds had sprung up beside the boats. 
Four bamboo poles, four square mats of woven 
fiber and the fifth for the roof made a mat-shed. 
There were no doors. If you wanted to enter, you 
picked up one of the flapping mats and crawled in. 
It was a hot afternoon. All the rest of the mission 
were indoors. I would not have been out myself 
but that word had come from one of the Bible 
women that a convert, an old woman, was very sick 
in the next village. So I took a wheelbarrow and 
started out. The wheelbarrow man stopped every 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 203 

few moments to mop himself. He did it thoroughly, 
beginning at his eyes and only stopping at his tightly 
drawn belt. Along this mud river, the stench was 
horrible. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed in the air. 
Naked babies and mangy dogs played with each 
other in front of the huts. At the door of one hut, 
the mat over the opening was looped back. A 
crowd of women were gathered about the doorway, 
wailing aloud. Children hung to the skirts of their 
mothers. Wisps of unbleached white cloth were tied 
around the arms of two or three of the mourners. 
My wheelbarrow man stopped to rest and dry off. I 
got down from my narrow shelf on one side of the 
wheel and approached the mourners. 

"'The old woman has become nothing,' they said. 
'She died this morning. Her daughter died yester- 
day. There remains only the young aunt and this 
new-born baby.' 

'"Where is the father?' I asked. 

"'We know not the father,' they replied. 'The 
aunt says he is a river man who comes by here when 
the river is in flood, but no one knows him. We 
think to bury the baby with her mother, for there is 
no one to care for it.' 

"'Yes,' said the aunt, 'we must bury the baby. 
I am about to go to the home of my mother-in-law, 
and I cannot take a sucking child with me. We will 
bury them all three together in one coffin.' 

"Within the hut, which was no bigger than a 
large packing box, lay the dead bodies of two women. 
In the crook of a dead woman's elbow lay a little, 
warm, living child. It had been wrapped in rags, 



204 MY CHINESE DAYS 

filthy rags, full of lice, but it lay there, in the bend of 
the dead woman's arm, contented and smiling. It 
was so young that it was not yet hungry. 

"'Give it to me,' I said. 

"Some one caught up the baby and placed her in 
my arms. 

'"Yes, yes, we will give the baby to the foreign- 
born healer to be her adopted child. We do not 
want the baby at all. We would bury the baby 
alive. It will be more better that the foreign-born 
teacher take the child for her own.' 

'"The women clamored around me. I was silent 
with astonishment. I had only wanted to see the 
baby when I said 'give her to me.' But to them my 
request had suggested a way out of the difficulty. 
The baby snuggled against me as if she were glad 
not to be pressed against that cold, dead body any 
longer. I was a new missionary. I knew that 
often the mission was involved in legal difficulties by 
just such a gift of transfer, yet I could not go away 
and put that baby back beside its dead mother. 
My wheelbarrow man decided the question for me. 
I don't know how long I would have stood there, 
pondering. 'Come, Missey,' he said. 'Too muchee 
hot. Must go on.' 

"I wrote my name and address on a slip of paper 
and gave it to the aunt. I also took her name and 
the name of her mother-in-law, who lived in an 
adjoining hut. I didn't promise to adopt the baby, 
as they all wanted, but I did tell them I would look 
after it. I made the aunt say she would come to 
the mission once a month to see the child. 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 205 

"I got back on the wheelbarrow with the strange, 
dirty beggar baby in my arms. At the house of 
the convert I found the old woman much better. 
Together we dressed and washed the baby and gave 
it its first feeding of warm goat's milk. The old 
woman took a fancy to the child. She said to 
me she knew more about bringing up babies than 
I did — I wasn't married then. She said also that 
she knew what it was necessary for a Chinese child 
to know. She asked me to leave the baby with her, 
to bring up till she was old enough to go to the 
mission boarding school. That is the story of E 
Tsung. She graduated at the mission boarding 
school last spring. She is only eighteen and she 
chooses not to be married yet. She herself asked 
to be a nurse." 

That was how Pretty came to us. She was the 
gayest, most agile youngster. Nothing was too 
hard for her, nothing too tiring. Everything in- 
terested her. Miss Laurie fell in love with her at 
once. "That girl will make a good nurse," she 
said enthusiastically. "She is worth any amount 
of training. But I suppose she will get married 
right away and spoil it all. She can manage 
anybody." 

We started volley ball that fall for the nurses. We 
strung up an old tennis net in the yard and divided 
the girls into two teams. When they took off their 
aprons to play, they looked the cutest, most frolic- 
some set of children on earth. And Pretty was the 
quickest and brightest among them ; she was a 
universal favorite. Another pastime of the nurses 



2o6 MY CHINESE DAYS 

was the Virginia Reel. I sat at the little organ and 
played the Swanee River, the only tune I knew, and 
the nurses danced their cheeks pink. They were 
more like irresponsible children than independent, 
trained nurses. Miss Laurie used to worry over it. 

"How shall I ever make them grow up and take 
responsibility?" she said. 

"You can't," I answered. "It will happen of 
itself. You can't make them into American women. 
You must let them take their time. You have 
to treat them like boarding-school girls." 

Whenever the girls went out, they were accom- 
panied by an amah, a respectable and trustworthy 
woman we employed just for that purpose. 

One afternoon Pretty and A-doo and the chaperone 
went out together. About five o'clock A-doo and 
the amah came back. They hurried across the com- 
pound and asked for Miss Laurie, but Miss Laurie 
was out, so I saw them. 

"E Tsung is gone," they said. 

"Gone where?" I asked. 

"We do not know," they said. "Simply she is 
gone. We walked along Bubbling Well and then 
down Nanking Road, looking in the shop windows. 
We came to the new Chinese theater where there is a 
magic box which shoots one rapidly up to the top of 
the building. From the roof one can see all the 
world. E Tsung said she wanted to go up. We 
would not have gone of ourselves, but E Tsung 
wanted to. Also we had heard the matron, who had 
gone up, say it was harmless. We had to pay a 
little, but we had enough money. I felt a very 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 207 

terrifying sickness as we left the earth," said A- 
doo. "I looked at E Tsung, and she looked as if 
she would soon lose her eyes ; they were popping out 
of her head. But she said she liked it. At the 
top we got out on a kind of square platform and 
looked off in all directions at all the world. We saw 
the Whangpoo and the boats and the yellow mist 
where lies the Great Yangtse. We were very busy 
looking first this way and that. We were higher 
than the Loong Wha pagoda. We saw its tower on' 
a level with our eyes across the fields. We could 
look down on Nanking Road and see the carriages 
crawling as slowly as ants. Then we looked for 
E Tsung, and she was gone. We asked everybody, 
but no one had seen her. How could she leave 
but by the rising and falling box? And how could 
she have vanished without our knowledge?" 

A-doo and the amah were very much excited, and 
so, for that matter, was L The loss of a girl in 
Shanghai is no laughing matter, especially of such 
a young and pretty one as E Tsung. She had never 
been out alone in all her life. I told A-doo and the 
amah not to tell any of the nurses of Pretty's dis- 
appearance, for I did not want to ruin the girl's 
reputation while there yet might be hope of her 
coming back. I didn't know what to do, so I 
phoned Mrs. Maitland. 

"E Tsung is here," she said. "I have told her 
she must never run away like that again. I have 
told her to go right to you and apologize." 

I was weak with the sudden relief. Half an 
hour later, E Tsung came, all contrition and smiles, 



2o8 MY CHINESE DAYS 

to offer her excuses. Chinese excuses are invariably 
works of art, but hers was a masterpiece. 

"My heart came up into my mouth when we 
were carried up so far into the clouds," she said. 
"The earth was changed and strange. I was afraid 
it would vanish and be there no longer. Already it 
was only a mirage. I turned around quickly and 
sprang back into the descending box before it should 
go down and leave me away from everybody, up 
in the clouds. At the bottom, I waited and waited, 
half a day, for A-doo and the amah. They came 
not. I felt in my heart that some evil thing had 
happened to them. I was afraid to come back to the 
hospital without them, so I called a ricksha and went 
to the home of my adopted mother. She scolded 
me for having run away like that and said you would 
be very much worried. I am sorry for my wicked- 
ness and foolishness." 

She was very contrite. Her breath came quickly, 
and her eyes watched my face for signs of anger. She 
twisted a corner of her jacket in her fingers. I 
scolded her severely, and forgave her, then dismissed 
her with a heart full of thankfulness that no harm 
had come of the episode. I got up and walked to 
my window, without any plan of espionage in my 
action. I was only moving around aimlessly, as we 
all do at times. I saw Pretty pause a moment on 
the threshold, look cautiously around, dance down a 
few steps, then wave her hands towards the houses 
on the left. After waving, she stopped as if waiting 
an answering signal. Evidently it came, for she 
waved again and ran back to the hospital. 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 209 

All my peace of mind was gone. An intrigue was 
brewing. I knew it, I felt it in my bones. Pretty's 
little air of triumph when she waved her hand at 
the invisible watcher had betrayed her. Miss 
Laurie came home soon, and I told her all the story. 
"I don't see how you can suspect her," she said 
indignantly. "I would as soon suspect my sister. 
She is too honest, too self-reliant to do anything 
underhand. She was only waving her hand with 
relief at your forgiveness. Did you see anybody 
return her salute?" 

"No," I said. "But don't forget that the 
Paulun Hospital is visible through the alley. I 
myself have seen the Chinese interns in their white 
uniforms on the upper balcony." 

"You don't mean to say you think she would 
carry on a flirtation with one of them?" 

"I don't know," I said, "but that is what I was 
thinking." 

"Chinese girls don't do such things," said Miss 
Laurie. "Our girls wouldn't. They are too nice." 

"Anybody will," I said. "It's not a question of 
being nice or not. It's a question of life. I think 
we ought to guard the girls more carefully. In- 
dependence is fermenting in the air. It's a dan- 
gerous time." 

"You want to coddle the nurses and make babies 
of them," said Miss Laurie. " I want to make them 
self-respecting women." 

"So do I," I agreed. "Only I want to watch 
over them while they are young, so that they will 
never have an occasion for loss of self-respect." 



2IO MY CHINESE DAYS 

"You suspect them," asserted Miss Laurie. "I 
think it is an insult." 

"I know," I replied. 

There the matter dropped. When one day Mrs. 
Maitland came to tea, I told her my suspicions. 
She was Pretty's godmother, and I didn't want the 
responsibility on my soul. She agreed with Miss 
Laurie, so, little by little, my apprehension was 
stilled. 

One morning I went over to the hospital earlier 
than usual. On the steps the nurses were gathered 
around a flower woman. The flower-seller held a 
round, shallow basket slung over her shoulder by a 
string. The basket was full of tiny flower buds, tied 
on invisible wires, ready to be hung on the studs 
that close a woman's dress on the shoulders, or to 
be stuck in the hair. The nurses were buying. 
Pretty stood at one side of the group, a flower lying 
unobserved at her feet, and in her hand a letter. 
It was a long, thin Chinese letter, written on double 
rice paper. I saw the graceful straggling characters 
going up and down the page from top to bottom. 
Pretty was utterly engrossed ; her cheeks were a 
bright pink. 

The matron, Wang S Moo, came out of the 
counting room, and saw me looking at Pretty. 
She beckoned to me with her eyes. I followed her 
into the office and closed the door. 

"Every day it is so," said Wang S Moo. "The 
postman brings a letter for E Tsung. When I ask 
her who writes it, she looks at me angrily and says, 
'It is from my aunt.' But all the world knows her 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 211 

aunt lives in a mat-shed and can neither read nor 
write. The nurses say, when she has her off hours, 
she goes into her room and shuts the door, and refuses 
to let any one come in. But one of the nurses 
looked through the keyhole and saw her writing a 
letter. The gateman says that every day E Tsung 
gives him a cash to post a letter for her. If you 
wish, I will tell the gateman not to post the letter, 
but to give it to you. Then we will find out all 
about the mischief." 

"Oh, we couldn't do that," I exclaimed, aghast 
at the systematic, curious spying. 

"We must do something," said the matron. "E 
Tsung no longer does her work. When she makes 
the beds in the morning she does not sweep out the 
crumbs, she merely pulls the quilt straight. She 
boasts to the other girls that she will soon be rich 
and not have to work any more." 

"This is dreadful," I said helplessly. "I will 
tell Miss Laurie." Miss Laurie, however, was 
inclined to believe that the matron had a spite 
against the girl because she was so quick and clever 
and did her work so well. Miss Laurie refused to 
accept such evidence. "But I tell you what I 
will do," she said, "I will call all the nurses together 
and announce the rule that no girl may receive 
letters that are not first opened by me. I hate to 
do it, it seems so suspicious, but we don't want 
anything to happen to that child. That will put 
an end to the correspondence." 

A few of the advanced spirits among the nurses re- 
sented the innovation. Daily the postman handed 



212 MY CHINESE DAYS 

the letters to Miss Laurie, but Pretty got no more, 
and we congratulated ourselves that the incident was 
closed. Then one afternoon I went over to the hos- 
pital about five o'clock, the time I was least likely to 
be there. In the front hall, sitting on one of the 
stiff guest chairs reserved for relatives of the sick, sat 
a dapper young Chinese man, and before him stood 
Pretty, dressed In her best clothes, blushing and 
smiling. "Who is this man?" I asked severely. 

"My uncle," said Pretty promptly. 

" Do you not know you cannot receive men in this 
hospital?" I asked. 

"Not strangers, of course," said Pretty, "but an 
uncle — " 

"No, not a young uncle," I said. " It is not good 
custom. If the nurses in the hospital do not observe 
good custom, no one will want to send their daughters 
to us to be trained for the honorable calling of nurse." 

I sent him off, and I ordered Pretty up to her 
room for the rest of the day. 

"I think we will have to send her back to Mrs. 
Maitland," I said to Miss Laurie. "Something is 
going on. I don't trust her." 

"That is just the trouble," said Miss Laurie. 
"Neither of us trusts her. The matron suspects 
her and spies on her. The other nurses are jealous 
and envious." 

"But what can we do," I asked 

" I'll go over and have a talk with her," said Miss 
Laurie. "Won't you come too?" 

This was not according to Chinese etiquette, that 
the superiors should go to the inferiors, but it was 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 213 

true Christianity. We had come to break down 
just such barriers between woman and woman, 
barriers that prevent the stretching across of a 
helping hand. We decided to wait till after supper. 
The appalling lack of privacy in all Chinese life 
defeated our purpose of seeing Pretty alone. First 
we made rounds. The wards were peaceful and 
quiet. A little new baby lay asleep in its white 
crib in the mother's ward. Its mother opened her 
eyes at the sound of our footsteps and put out her 
hand and patted the baby. The night nurses 
followed us with a candle, ready to light it, tip it 
over, so that a bit of melted wax might drop on the 
seat of a stool or a table, and stick the candle in 
its waxen socket. The long rooms were dimly lit 
by the faint night bulbs. On the third story I 
leaned out over the railing and looked far and wide 
over the city. A gash of light across the sky marked 
the path of Nanking Road through the town. The 
lighted face of the clock on the watch tower shone 
like a golden moon. Dark and silent and closely 
packed together lay the plastered houses around us. 
Directly in front rose the dark outline of the Paulun 
Hospital. It too was dimmed for the night, but 
across the lighted doorways figures could be seen 
passing and repassing. I fancied I saw a figure 
come out of a French window on the second-story 
verandah and walk to and fro. It was discernible 
like a moving white spot. 

The two night nurses, hand in hand, followed us 
around. "It is very black to-night," one said, "I 
hope it will not be necessary to cross the compound 



214 MY CHINESE DAYS 

to call the doctor. I am always afraid to leave the 
hospital when it is so dark. Also I hope the sick 
woman will not die to-night. I do not like them to 
die on dark nights." 

I turned to the bed behind me. The patient, a 
young girl of about sixteen, lay dying of consumption. 
She had been a hopeless case from the start, but 
nevertheless I hated to lose her. She put out a feeble 
hand and caught a fold of my dress to attract my 
attention. 

"I fear," she whispered. I bent over her. "Do 
not fear," I said in answer. "The Lord Jesus forgets 
no one." 

"I know," she said, "but it is hard to remember 
in the darkness." 

We lit a candle at her bedside. Its tiny flicker 
of light only accentuated the gloom, but it pleased 
her. I told the nurses to stay with her as much as 
possible. Back we went, down through the peaceful 
wards, across the court, and up the stairs to the 
nurses' quarters. We walked on tiptoe, we didn't 
speak. I know the thought in both our hearts was 
one and the same — to reach Pretty's room un- 
observed. But it was quite a useless and futile 
hope. At the head of the stairs we met Me Li 
going for a bath, with her towel hung over her 
arm. "Sien San has come," she announced. Along 
the corridor doors flew open. In a moment we 
were surrounded by a throng of nurses. They were 
so slim and childish in their striped trousers and 
jackets of blue and white that I always felt like a 
grandmother among them. So caught, we made 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 215 

the round of their rooms, a proceeding which we 
do every so often. At Pretty's door we knocked. 

"She is not in," said Me Li. 
t "Not in," we repeated in amazement. "How do 
you know?" 

"I can't get in," said Me Li. "I have been 
rooming with her for the last month, but tonight, 
when I came off duty, I could not open the door. I 
tried the lock ; it was bolted. I looked through the 
keyhole, and the room was empty." 

"You shouldn't spy on a roommate," said Miss 
Laurie quickly. 
. " It was my room too," said Me Li. 

"That was before supper," said A-doo. "If she 
had not come back soon, I was coming over to tell 
Miss Laurie." 

"It is a shameful thing," said one of the new 
nurses. "My father will take me away if such 
affairs go on here." 

"Yes," said Me Li, "we think you should not let 
her come back when she wants to." 

"Yes, that is the proper custom," chorused the 
girls. 

I looked at Miss Laurie in consternation. 

"If she comes back," I said, "we cannot turn her 
out." 

" It would be good custom," insisted the girls. 

Their attitude of prying curiosity exasperated us, 
but by this time we knew that this very attitude 
was one of the Chinese safeguards of conduct. In 
such a communal life, no secrecy could succeed. 
We were gathered at the head of the stairs, we on 



2i6 MY CHINESE DAYS 

the steps, the nurses in the hall. Through the open 
doors of their rooms we saw their little iron bed- 
steads and the chests of drawers and their small 
trunks covered with white leather and clasped with 
brass hasps. Directly in front of me was A-doo's 
room. On the dressing table stood the tiny vanity 
box of Chinese women with its mirror and case for 
hair ornaments. Next was the closed, locked door 
of Pretty's room. On the gravel of the driveway we 
heard the wheels of a ricksha and the sharp tones of 
bargaining. Evidently the man was easily contented , 
for the wheels turned and rumbled back to the gate- 
way slowly. Quick steps sounded on the stairs 
behind us, and Pretty came running up. She was 
upon Miss Laurie before she knew it. When she 
would have drawn back, Miss Laurie flung out an 
arm and caught the girl around her waist. Pretty 
deserved her nickname. She wore a suit of white 
satin with a thin gauze skirt, which in the accepted 
manner of Chinese summer skirts, showed her 
satin trousers plainly. Her black hair was worn in 
one of the most stylish fashions of the moment. 
Heavy bangs, cut short over the forehead and long 
over the temples, hanging down the side of her face 
as far as the tips of her ears, ringed her glowing face 
like an ebony frame. Two heavy plaits were wound 
around her head in a borrowed Gretchen fashion. 

For one dramatic instant we were all silent. Then 
the nurses broke out in vituperation. 

"I wish not a sound," said Miss Laurie authorita- 
tively, holding up a silencing hand. "Where have 
you been, E Tsung?" 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 217 

"I cannot say," said Pretty. 

"But you must say when I ask you," said Miss 
Laurie. * ' You know the rules of the Training School. 
No girl is ever permitted to go out alone after dark. 
It is bad custom. You yourself know it is not 
proper custom for a Chinese young girl. Every 
one will say words that are not good to hear." 

Pretty drew herself away from Miss Laurie's arm. 

"It is all true, what you say," she said. "I 
know it is not proper Chinese custom. I know what 
people will say, Me Li especially. But what have 
you come here for, but to teach us new customs that 
shall be proper for Chinese women as well as foreign 
women? You tell us we must not worship our 
fathers. There was no custom more sacred than 
that. If we do not worship our fathers, what 
matters it what class of strangeness we do ? Often 
have I seen Miss Laurie and Au-I-Sung go out at 
night. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a man 
who is not relation. No one says wicked words. It 
is proper American custom. Why shall it not be 
proper Chinese custom? I have done nothing 
wrong." 

How could we explain the difference, the danger, in 
the face of the scandalized nurses, to the bright, 
defiant eyes of Pretty ? 

"Go to your room and stay there till I send for 
you," said Miss Laurie. "Your meals will be 
brought up to you. When you came here, you agreed 
to obey our rules, and you have disobeyed." 

Miss Laurie went into the room with Pretty. I 
shooed the rest to their room and gave them some 



2i8 MY CHINESE DAYS 

useless words of advice on forgiveness and forbear- 
ance. 

"Her grandmother lived in a mat-shed," mur- 
mured Me Li. 

I was bafifled, as much by the rest of the nurses as 
by Pretty. I knew how Pretty felt. She belonged 
to the new generation. The new wine had burst 
the old wine skins and was spilling and wasting itself 
riotously. Before the direct, fearless look of her 
eyes I had no answer. I felt instinctively as I 
waited on the front steps of the house for Miss 
Laurie, that the ancient method of confinement 
would have no salutary effect on her. 

A little glowworm opened and shut Its wings on 
the rosebush at my side. What a worm-miracle 
It was, radiant, slight, swaying at night on the branch 
of the rose bush. It enthralled me as I watched. I 
fastened my eyes on the spot and waited for the 
coming glimpse of soft light. No wonder the women 
of the south sea wore them as jewels in their hair, 
living jewels ! 

A din of beaten drums and the chant of priests 
came down the street, transforming the night from 
a silent beauty Into a vivid, pulsating thing of 
human events. It was a funeral procession. I 
walked out to the gate to watch It. The street was 
alive and gay. Children pulled toy animals, of 
painted paper lighted within by a candle, along the 
flags of the market place. The funeral was small 
and meager. A few boys with their circular parasols, 
more like lamp shades than sunshades, followed 
the priests. It wasn't the burial proper, only the 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 219 

carrying of the coffin to the coffin house. At the 
money changer's across the way the men leaned 
on the counter, naked from the waist up, and smoked 
and chatted. The eat-shop next door was filled with 
coolies. An opium den, silent and shadowy, with 
its sign hung far out over the door, was faintly lit. 
Farther down the street came a break in the light, a 
crack of darkness which marked the mouth of a back 
alley. A large automobile waited in front of the 
curb at the entrance of the alley. Another glided 
up noiselessly, and two Chinese in handsome silks 
got out quickly and hurried into the darkness of 
the alley. A gambling den ! Along the curb sat 
men and women on tiny four-legged stools enjoying 
the coolness of the evening air. Worlds upon 
worlds crowded upon me, one world of the lit, gay 
street, another of the quiet dim compound but a few 
yards away, and yet another of the small neat room 
with its iron bedstead and chest of drawers and 
dressing case where Miss Laurie talked with Pretty, 
and yet another of my own consciousness and its 
bitter wants and needs. 

"What did you accomplish?" I asked Miss 
Laurie, when she came. 

"Nothing," she said. "She wouldn't tell me 
anything about where she had been or what she 
had been doing. She said a thousand times she 
had done nothing wrong and asked me to trust her. 
I said I did trust her, but that she must obey the 
rules of the hospital. She said that wasn't trusting 
her. We went over and over the same ground. 
Finally I locked her in., and said she was to stay in 



220 MY CHINESE DAYS 

her room till I came back from Wusih. That will 
be three days. I wish I were not going. However, 
it can't be helped. If she is repentant, she will have 
to make a public apology and then we'll forgive her. 
If she isn't she will have to be sent back to Mrs. 
Maitland. We can't have the responsibility of 
looking after her if she won't obey." 

Miss Laurie left by the early morning train. 
The nurses volunteered the information that Pretty 
had refused to let the amah in. She had not taken 
her breakfast. I was not surprised at that. Dinner 
at noon she also refused. She maintained a sullen 
silence. I could not stand it ; I was afraid she would 
do something desperate. I chose a moment when 
all the nurses were at their busiest in clinic, and went 
upstairs on my tiptoes. I drew the key stealthily 
from my pocket and opened the door. I stepped 
inside quickly and closed it after me. The room 
was empty. My heart suddenly began to beat 
suffocatingly. I turned the key in the lock behind 
me as I wished to be undisturbed, and went over 
to the bed in the corner. I could not tell whether it 
had been slept in or not, for its smooth matting 
betrayed no creases. I opened the drawers. They 
were full of clothes. A little dressing case open 
stood on the top of the bureau. A pigskin box was 
unlocked. I could not be sure, but, to my eyes, the 
room looked as if it had just been left for a moment, 
as if its occupant meant to return shortly. A picture 
of Mrs. Maitland and another of the mission school 
hung on the wall. One of Pretty herself, hold- 
ing tightly to the ear of a bronze griffon, stood 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 221 

unframed on the dresser. I went to the window. 
The roof of the veranda sloped steeply towards the 
ground. The drop from it would be not more than 
ten feet. On a nail at the edge of the roof I caught 
sight of a piece of black gauze. At least she had not 
taken opium ! Would she come back, or had she 
gone forever? And where? 

I listened along the corridor, but no one was 
stirring, so I stuffed the keyhole with a bit of cotton 
to keep the empty room from the prying eyes of Me 
Li, and escaped unobserved. I rushed through 
clinic and set out for Mrs. Maitland's. I did not 
like to telephone the news. I wanted to save Pretty, 
and somehow I felt sure that Mrs. Maitland would 
know a way. I almost hoped I might find Pretty 
there, for Mrs. Maitland was the kind of woman to 
whom a girl could go with any trouble. To my eager 
mind, that warm afternoon, man-power seemed a 
snail-like way of covering distance. The naked 
waist of my runner glistened with sweat. He shook 
his head violently every so often, and a spray of 
moisture flew into the air. On the benches along 
the houses, narrow as a hand's-breadth, men lay 
full length asleep. Everywhere was the incessant 
whir of fans, round and oval and conical, fanning 
faces and backs and stomachs. On an empty lot a 
circle of horses were exercising. At the head of 
each animal walked its keeper. In the center of the 
slowly, ever-revolving circle, stood a man with a bird 
cage, containing a black minne bird with a yellow 
beak, singing. The whirling horses and the whirl- 
ing men were utterly silent, as if mesmerized by 



222 MY CHINESE DAYS 

the thin piping of the captive bird. The gold signs 
on their ebony backgrounds waved languidly before 
the shops on Nanking Road. Over the high counters 
in the open shops appeared the bronze bodies of 
the jacketless clerks. Silent, smoking water pipes, 
they leaned on the counter, gazing inscrutably into 
the future. Before the newest jeweler shop, the 
manikins of plaster in embroidered robes revolved 
tirelessly over the doorway. We were the only ob- 
jects in sight that moved faster than a snail's pace, 
and that was only out of deference to the wishes of 
the foreign devil in the ricksha. It is well known 
that when a foreign devil wishes to go anywhere, 
he wishes to be there at once. Panting and drip- 
ping, my puller ran on. On the bund a breath of 
freshness met us. Across the river, Phootung was 
half hidden in foliage. The feeble air but flapped 
in the sails of the junks. Already the benches 
along the water front were filled with foreign babies 
and their amahs. My eyes slipped idly over them. 
In the garden the band was playing. 

"Stop! Stop!" I cried, leaping out before the 
shafts touched the ground. I darted across the street 
and caught hold of Pretty, who was deep in conversa- 
tion with a handsome youth. I had neither words nor 
breath left to speak, but I held her tightly. Night 
had not yet come, she was safe. "Oh ! E Tsung," 
I cried at last, "why did you run away?" 

* * I had to, " she said. * * You would not let me meet 
him. I must see him." 

I looked at the man. He wore a white flannel suit 
of foreign cut and looked very dapper and handsome. 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 223 

"Who is he!" I asked. 

"He is my future husband," Pretty answered. 

The answer took my breath away. But one 
solution appeared to my dazed faculties. We 
would go to Mrs. Maitland. She would know 
what to do. 

"Call a ricksha/' I said to the man, "and follow 
us. I will take E Tsung with me." 

"Where are you taking me?" asked Pretty. 

"To Mrs. Maitland," I answered. 

They made no objection. I took Pretty on my 
lap as an amah takes her mistress. The runner 
demurred, but I promised him double the fare. 
Holding her on my knees in the intimate way one 
holds a little child, I could feel no anger at her. In 
fact, I had not been as much angry as worried all 
along. I wanted to save her. There was something 
so utterly lovable about her, one could not help 
liking her. After we had ridden in silence a block 
or so. Pretty's hand stole into mine. 

"You will understand, Au-I-Sung," she said. 
"You also love the foreign man. Days when he 
comes not to see you, your heart is sad and heavy. 
I know, for I have watched the look in your eyes. 
At first I did not know what made you so different, 
some days so merry, as if the sunshine lived in your 
eyes, and some days so sad, as if your heart were 
crying. But lately I have understood. I could 
not pass a day without seeing him. I had to run 
away. You are not angry, are you?" 

"No, E Tsung," I said, "I am not angry. If you 
wished to be married, why did you not tell us, so 



224 MY CHINESE DAYS 

that we could have arranged it for you in an honor- 
able manner." 

"No," she said, "I did not want it arranged. I 
wanted to do it myself." 

"Who is this man?" I asked. "What do you 
know about him? Where did you meet him?" 

"He is Li-I-Sung. I met him at the house of a 
school friend of mine, that first day I ran away from 
A-doo and the amah. I had in my heart no wicked- 
ness that day, but to run away and see my school 
friend. She is married and has a baby. I wanted 
to see the baby. Her husband was there, also 
Li-I-Sung. They also were schoolmates. Li-I- 
Sung has studied the foreign medicine already 
three years. When I saw him I wanted to marry 
him at once, and I asked him if he would like it. I 
think he wanted to marry me at once too. He 
works at the Paulun Hospital. But we couldn't 
marry at once. We planned a signal of hand wavings 
and letters, and we used to itieet every afternoon at 
the corner. The day I was out at night, I had not 
been able to go to meet him in the afternoon, and so 
I had to go after supper." 

Mrs. Maitland looked very serious at the tale. 
"You cannot marry Mr. Li now, at once," she said. 
"It is not seemly. You will have to return to the 
mat-shed of your aunt and eat the rice and water of 
bitterness. Do you not know that Mr. Li must first 
finish his course? If he marries he will have to 
leave." 

"That is a foolish and unjust custom," said 
Pretty, "but it can't be helped. He will have to 



WHERE THERE'S A WILL 225 

leave. As for sending me back to the mat-shed of 
my aunt, that also is useless. I would run away 
before your wheelbarrow were out of sight." 

"What, then, will you do?" 

"I will marry Mr. Li." 

Mrs. Maitland turned to Mr. Li. He was 
evidently in love with Pretty but would have been 
open to reason. He regretted the necessity of not 
finishing his course but would rather do that than 
not get Pretty. Again Mrs. Maitland tried to 
make Pretty see reason, to persuade her to wait six 
months till Mr. Li finished his course. "I cannot 
wait," she said. "You must understand how I 
feel. If he does not marry me now, I will kill 
myself." 

She had her way. Then and there, they were 
married in the parlor of the mission house, Mrs. 
Maitland and I being the witnesses. That evening 
we saw them off on the train for Wusih, for Mr. Li 
said he knew enough medicine to make a living 
there. My eyes were full of tears as I watched 
them go, young, alone, eloping like any western 
couple caught in the toils of a great love. 



XVIII 
THE SEEKING HAND 

A-DOO was convalescing from typhoid. She 
had had a very mild case and could hardly 
be persuaded to stay in bed a full three 
weeks. Tomorrow she was to be allowed up for the 
first time. It was Sunday afternoon, and I was 
preaching in the chapel. The room was full of 
patients and a host of their friends. I was speaking 
on the parable of the Good Shepherd. The con- 
gregation leaned forward, hanging over the backs of 
the benches in front in their eagerness to hear and 
understand. The story, in the telling simplicity of 
Chinese phrases, held a startling power. I was 
thrilled by it myself, as if hearing it for the first time, 
and to the audience it was as magic as a fairy tale, 
this story of a searching and finding God. Pictures 
of their idols rose to my mind, the pair of kitchen 
gods sitting side by side on a ledge in the cement 
over the stove, ready to curse or bless, according to 
the amount and tastiness of the food offerings placed 
before them ; the wooden painted idols in the shrines 
in the native city covered with the dirt of ages who, 
as the matron scornfully said, ''can't even lift their 
hands to wash their faces " ; and the great bronze 
Buddhas sitting cross-legged on their dais, looking 



THE SEEKING HAND 227 

out over the centuries with inscrutable calm. I saw 
them worshiping their idols, knocking their fore- 
heads on the cold stones at the feet of the images, 
bound and tortured by fear and yearning. No 
wonder they listened with bated breath to the story 
of a God who went after the lost to seek and to find. 
I heard low murmurs run through the crowd, 
"Wonderful!" "It is not to be believed!" "The 
words are good to hear ! " "What is the meaning ? " 
Wonder, I think, was the principal expression on 
their faces, wonder and a shy delight, much as you 
or I would feel if we were suddenly told we had wings 
and could fly up into the sky at will. Then we sang 
the old gospel hymn, "Jesus loves me." The 
Chinese words are simple, and the tune went with a 
swing. Enough of the nurses and patients who 
knew the hymn were there to make it go. 

We were at the third verse when Little Wang, 
who was on duty in the wards, slipped in and 
touched my arm. 

"Come quickly," she said, "a man is killing A-doo." 

I left them singing the hymn and ran along 
through the half empty ward with Little Wang. 
Sounds rose up to meet us — the loud angry tones 
of a man's voice and a sobbing, pleading woman's 
voice. I burst open the door of A-doo's room. A 
tall rough man was leaning over her bed, shaking 
her violently by the shoulders, speaking all the time. 
He repeated his words over and over again. "You 
must come. You must do as I tell you. Are you 
not mine ! Get up and come." 

"I can't. I have been sick," A-doo cried. 



228 MY CHINESE DAYS 

I flew at the man and jerked him away by the back 
of his coat. 

"Go," I said, pointing at the door. "Go quickly 
before I have you arrested. And if I ever see you 
here again, I will send for the police. Do you hear 
me? Go!" 

If I had been less angry or had hesitated, I might 
not have gotten rid of him so easily, though In 
Shanghai lower-class Chinese are accustomed to 
obeying the foreigner. The man hung a moment in 
the doorway, then turned and hurried down the 
stairs. I ran over to the window and poked my 
head out, to be sure that he had left the compound. 
I saw him hesitate at the gate, but I shook my fist 
at him, and he disappeared. Then I turned to 
A-doo, who was crying desperately. The entire con- 
gregation had adjourned and followed me through 
the ward to A-doo's room and now was crowding 
around A-doo's bed. I took the nearest gently by 
the shoulders and pushed them towards the door. 
A babel of questions arose. Feeling how humiliat- 
ing this swarm of curious onlookers must be to A-doo, 
I urged them vigorously towards the door. 

Suddenly A-doo sat up in bed and flung out her 
hands dramatically towards us. Her pale face, her 
red and swollen eyes, her disheveled hair, lent her 
figure the strange, arresting menace of despair. The 
crowd, which had been yielding to my pressure and 
ebbing through the door, now surged back and filled 
the room. The hospital amahs, the coolies, the 
patients and their visitors, all were huddled in a 
close-breathing group in the small room. As if 



THE SEEKING HAND 229 

caught on the crest of a wave, the crowd, pressing 
forward to A-doo's bed, had carried me ahead. I 
stood close beside her 

"Let them go, A-doo," I said. 

"In a little moment," she said. "They must 
first hear my woe. Listen, all ye who pass by, and 
hear my woe and see the bitterness which I have 
eaten. That man who was killing me is my hus- 
band. Ten years have I supported him by the work 
of my hands, him and my old mother. Too much 
is it for a woman. I work and am paid, then in the 
night comes my husband and threatens to kill me 
or to sell me, unless I give him my money. Some- 
times he finds it all, and sometimes he only finds a 
part, for I hide it in many different places. Then 
he takes it and drinks and gambles. When he wants 
more he sets my mother-in-law to upbraid me. She 
fills me with fear, because she lives close beside my 
mother, in the village street, and when I do not give 
him enough money, she torments my mother. She 
sits at the gate of her courtyard and reviles the name 
of my mother to all the passers-by. Then, at last, 
even my mother comes to me to beg me to give up 
more money. I have none left. For two years I had 
peace. I was like a little girl, free and unafraid on 
the streets, for my husband was in prison. He stole 
a pair of blankets from a foreign woman, and the 
foreign man put him in prison. But what is a pair 
of blankets to what he has stolen from me ! All my 
money which I was saving for the old age of my 
mother^ who has no son, all my peace and happiness. 
The taste of bitterness, only bitterness, is in my 



230 MY CHINESE DAYS 

mouth for many days. And now I will pray the 
foreign doctor to have my husband put in prison 
again ; only thus shall I have peace and security." 

During this recital, the audience listened spell- 
bound. A-doo fell back exhausted. "Miserable 
one," murmured the crowd. A few old women 
hovered around the bed with advice, but the rest of 
the audience melted away. Bafifled by the utter 
foreignness of A-doo 's proceeding, I stood at the foot 
of the bed, not knowing what to say. A-doo began 
to cry again, so I sent little Wang for a quieting dose 
and led the last lingering gossips from the room. 
"Why did you excite yourself so, A-doo?" I asked. 

"I had to," she answered. "All those people 
would have gone away wondering what was the 
matter. They would have said terrible things about 
me, about the hospital, about the foreign doctors. 
I had to tell them. Besides, it is good Chinese 
custom. In the villages, if a woman has a bitter- 
ness past bearing alone, she goes to the scolding 
place and cries out her trouble to all the world that 
passes by. Then, after that, if her trouble is just, 
the village folk all sympathize with her and do not 
slander her. Truly it is a good custom. Already 
my heart feels lighter. Do not worry. The 
wretched man, my husband, is now thoroughly 
scared by the fierceness of the foreign woman. He 
will not come back for a long time. Also because 
he thinks he has all my money, but he has not. See." 

A-doo opened the sliding cover of her dressing 
box which stood on the little table by the bedside. 
She slipped back one shelf after the other and in the 



THE SEEKING HAND 231 

undermost, hidden under her hair ornaments, lay a 
roll of bills. She took them out and counted them 
over carefully. "Fifty," she said. "That will buy 
my mother rice till she dies. I have been saving it 
for many years." 

The next day A-doo was worse. Her relapse was 
a much more serious affair than the original attack, 
and she rallied very slowly. One day I found a 
country woman sitting at her bedside when I went in 
in the morning. She was a little, shriveled woman 
with wisps of gray hair pulled back from her face. 
Her brown eyes were bright, and her shrunken 
cheeks were ruddy with the marvelous health of 
the aged country folk. She was neatly dressed in 
faded blue cotton. 

"My mother-in-law," said A-doo. 

"I have come to take my dear daughter home," 
said the mother-in-law. "When a Chinese woman 
gets sick, then it is time for her to go home and not 
to eat the rice of strangers. We will start this after- 
noon." 

The woman's bright, beady eyes held me like a 
snake's eyes. The simple assurance of her state- 
ment aroused my antagonism. I stole a swift glance 
at A-doo. She was looking at me with a painful 
questioning. She did not want to go. Assured of 
that, I knew what course to take. I told the old 
hag firmly that I was the doctor of the house and 
that everybody had to obey my orders. I told her 
that A-doo was not well enough to go, and that I 
would not permit her to go. This made no im- 
pression on the old woman. 



232 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"She is the wife of my son," she repeated. "He 
wishes her at home. She will have to come. If she 
stays here and dies, the burden will be on your body. 
A foreign woman cannot know what a Chinese 
woman needs when she is sick. She must come 
home. I have come to take her. I rose up very 
early this morning before yet the sun had climbed 
the hill of heaven and came down the river in a boat. 
This afternoon we will go back when the shadows 
begin to grow longer." 

A-doo's face was flushed. A glittering, shining 
luster appeared in her eyes, I knew she was grow- 
ing excited, and I feared a return of her temperature, 
so I took the obstinate old creature by the elbow and 
led her from A-doo's room. Nor did I allow her to 
go back. I set a guard on the room, one nurse 
inside and one nurse outside, and we circumvented 
the mother-in-law. Perhaps it would have been 
better if I had let A-doo go at once. I was no 
match for the woman. 

"You do not want to go, A-doo?" I asked. 

"No, no," A-doo said, catching hold of my hand. 
"Do not let her get me. She wants my money. 
She hates me. She will torture me. I fear her more 
than I fear my husband. Keep me. Save me." 

"Don't worry," I said, foolish in my strength. 
"They shall not hurt you. I will not let you go, I 
will keep you. They cannot hurt you." 

A-doo laid my hand against her forehead. "You 
are as my father and mother to me," she said. ■- 

The little old witchlike woman hung around the 
compound all day, but by evening she was gone. 



THE SEEKING HAND 233 

I heaved a sigh of reHef , for I felt we were out of the 
woods. I had disposed of both the husband and 
the mother-in-law. Beware ! The foreigner who 
thinks he has bested a Chinese mother-in-law ! 
A week went by uneventfully, A-doo improved 
daily so that I let her get up and around. She ate 
her rice with relish and asked for a piece of foreign 
bread. She too seemed to have forgotten her 
trouble and to be once more the serene and smiling 
A-doo who had stood by me so manfully in the days 
of my greenness. I wondered at her calmness. I 
had not known her story in any detail, but I remem- 
bered Doctor Donnellon saying that A-doo was not 
a widow, as I had supposed, but a married woman, 
and that her husband was a rascal. The knowledge 
had gone out of my mind at once. Now, whenever 
I saw her, I thought of it and of the sudden revela- 
tion I had had of the hidden bitterness of her life. 
That woman, with the distorted face and accusing 
words, pouring forth her woes in a torrent to the 
unknown listeners, seemed to me a stranger from the 
capable, smiling A-doo of the operating room. I 
wondered had she two personalities? Was this one 
of the incomprehensible cases of dissociation of the 
ego? Had she an ancient Chinese individuality 
and a superimposed foreign- trained personality? 
I only knew that to me, the two A-doos were 
as distinct as two people. I was yet to meet 
a third. 

One morning after chapel Little Wang said to me, 
"A-doo's mother has come. She wants her to come 
home." 



234 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"Her own mother?" I asked. "Not her mother- 
in-law?" 

"Yes, her own mother," Little Wang answered. 

I found her sitting at the bedside of A-doo. She 
was utterly different from the mother-in-law. She 
was a large, placid woman with the kindly, benevo- 
lent eyes and smile that one often sees in old Chinese 
people. She wore hoops of blue enamel in her ears, 
and her hair ornaments were of the same. Her 
scanty black hair was brushed neatly and twisted in 
a tight small roll at the back of her head. Yet her 
face had not the force of the face of the mother-in- 
law. In her I felt no sinister, malignant power. 

"Do you want to go home?" I asked A-doo. 
"You are well enough to go now If you want to. A 
change and vacation would be good for you. But I 
will not let you go, if you do not want to. You 
must tell me truly. Do you want to go of your own 
freewill?" 

"Yes," said A-doo. "My mother wants me, 
therefore I must go." 

"Not unless you yourself want to go," I insisted. 

" I myself wish to go," said A-doo. 

Yet somehow her words did not satisfy me. She 
repeated them too mechanically, as if they were 
a response that had been learned generations 
ago, as if they had neither root nor branch in her 
own consciousness. Nor yet did she rebel. Her 
mother had come for her, therefore she must go. 
She was strangely passive. They were to leave in 
the afternoon at the same time that the witchlike 
mother-in-law had set, when the shadows grew long. 



THE SEEKING HAND 235 

All day the nurses were in a whirl, running about 
getting things for A-doo, helping her pack up her 
small square pigskin box, thrusting presents on her, 
cooking her a specially savory meal at noon. San 
Me, her best friend, sat in her room and talked. 
Just before parting time, San Me came to me. 

"All is not well," she said. "Since you sent away 
the son and the mother-in-law, for one long month, 
the mother-in-law has sat in the door of her house, 
which is next the house of A-doo's mother, and has 
reviled her and A-doo. All the village has heard the 
words. She has said that A-doo is unfilial. She 
has said that A-doo has sold herself in the big city. 
She has said that, while her husband was in prison, 
A-doo has had a child. All the village has stopped 
to listen, the men and the women and the children. 
They gossip about it around their gateways in the 
cool of the evening. Many do not believe it, but 
some do. The mother-in-law of A-doo is a wicked 
woman, and the village fears her. When she was 
young she cast fortunes. When she does not sit in 
her gateway and talk to all the passers-by, she takes 
out her magic scrolls and reads them and laughs and 
mutters to herself. It is more than the mother can 
bear any longer. So she has come for A-doo, to 
take her home to confound the old witch." 

"I will keep them both here," I said. "I will not 
let A-doo go back to be tormented." 

"It must be," said San Me. "She cannot stay. 
She would lose face." 

So I too acquiesced. I had raged and interfered 
and endeavored to prevent the fulfilment of a 



236 MY CHINESE DAYS 

Chinese destiny, and I was baffled. It was useless. 
The old witch had her way. A-doo was as if a spell 
had been put upon her. She neither spoke nor 
wailed nor objected. I went to her once again, but 
she shook her head. "It must be," she said. "I 
must go. It is my fate." 

The whole hospital turned out to say good-by. 
But it was not a hilarious leave-taking. Every one 
was oppressed with the shadow of some disaster. 
San Me went weeping to her room. 

"We will never see her again," she said. 

"Nonsense," I replied, but I felt a sinking of my 
heart. 

Weeks went by, and no sign came from A-doo. 
She had promised to write to San Me, but no letter 
came. At last San Me asked if she might not take 
two days off and go up the creek to see A-doo, 
spend one night with her, and come back the next 
day. San Me was a widow and so could be allowed 
more liberty than a young girl ; moreover she was 
an older woman. I let her go gladly, for I had grown 
worried at the utter disappearance of A-doo. She 
had vanished as completely as if some monster had 
opened his jaws and swallowed her up. It had 
been a terrible month for me. What with my long- 
ing for Edward and my uncertainty as to his where- 
abouts, a thousand doubts of his love had crept into 
my heart to torment my days and nights. I knew 
quite well what I wanted ; I wanted Edward back 
again. Then I was worried about A-doo. I 
reproached myself with having let her go too easily. 
So when San Me suggested that she go to see her I 



THE SEEKING HAND 237 

was glad. I found the whole hospital had been 
worrying about her. The moment my permission 
was given the nurses broke into a thousand conjec- 
tures. I found their thoughts had been as busy with 
A-doo as had mine. 

The two days that San Me was gone dragged 
along interminably. A deadly apprehension of bad 
news filled me, and the first sight of San Me con- 
firmed it. She stumbled into my room, blinded 
with tears. 

" What is it ? " I asked. " Did you find her ? Is 
she worse?" 

"Yes, I found her," San Me answered. "No, 
she is not worse." 

"Is she unhappy?" I asked. 

"No," San Me answered. "She is not unhappy. 
She does not feel anything. Her heart has died. 
Her body is quite well. She Is fat and her cheeks 
are pink, but her heart has died. She just sits in a 
chair and looks far away at the clouds, and smiles 
to herself. It Is the mother-in-law. She has be- 
witched A-doo. She put a spell on her. By and by 
A-doo will wither away and die. She did not know 
me when I got there. The boat was very slow. I 
did not get there till it was already twilight. The 
old mother and A-doo were sitting on little stools in 
front of the door. Just next door sat the mother-in- 
law. I heard her voice a long way off. She was 
reviling A-doo. She called her terrible names. 
A-doo sat there, looking at the pink clouds and 
smiling to herself, as if she did not hear the words of 
the mother-in-law. Perhaps she did not hear them, 



238 MY CHINESE DAYS 

I do not know. But the mother heard them. She 
sat embroidering a sHpper, and tears ran down her 
cheeks. She has grown old and thin. Her skin 
hangs on her cheek bones as if it were a loose bag. 
She touched A-doo on the arm, and they went in. 
The mother-in-law, as if she had somehow triumphed 
in making them go in first, sat on reviling them 
aloud. A group of little boys stood about her, 
listening with eager eyes and open mouths. I 
slipped into their house by the back door, and the 
mother-in-law did not see me. It was terrible. 
A-doo was in bed, she did not know me. The old 
mother wept. ' She has been this way from the first 
week,' she said. 'Her husband came back and took 
away her money and beat her. He thinks she still 
has more money, and sometimes he comes back and 
beats her and beats her, but A-doo won't speak to 
him. He thinks she is hiding more money, but I 
have not seen it. I tell him he will kill her, and then 
how will she ever work for him any more. I tell 
him he is foolish, but he is filled with wind and will 
not see sense. When he has beaten A-doo, then he 
creeps through the mats to the house of his mother, 
and I hear them talking and whispering till late in 
the night.' 

" I asked them both to come back in the boat with 
me, but the old woman wouldn't. She said it was 
fate. They would lose face if they ran away. In 
the morning before I left, A-doo knew me. She 
brought back her eyes from the clouds, and her soul 
seemed to return to her for a minute. She cried, 
and said she would like to come back to the hospital. 



THE SEEKING HAND 339 

But then the mother-in-law came in, and A-doo*s 
eyes went back to the clouds, and her soul was gone 
again. 

"Oh ! Save her ! Bring her back to life ! If she 
stays there much longer, she will die. I know. The 
witch will do it. This is not foolishness. I too am 
a Christian, but a power of the devil resides in some 
people. They are evil, and their thoughts, if they 
think of you, are evil and have an evil power to 
harm." 

I went to the matron for advice, and discovered an 
item of news that astounded me. A-doo's husband 
had found a position as house boy in a family living 
near by, on Avenue Road. The matron had known 
it for a long time. An exhorting council was ar- 
ranged — the matron, the Chinese minister, his wife 
who was a doctor, San Me, and myself. This, it 
seemed, was the proper Chinese way of appealing to 
the husband. He would not lose face if he yielded 
to such illustrious pressure. I wanted him to go 
home and bring A-doo back to the hospital and 
make his mother stop her public reviling. The 
council was arranged for the next day. I had given 
a promise that the meeting was not a trap, that no 
police would be called, that I would allow the hus- 
band to go as freely as he came. Wang S Moo, San 
Me, and I arrived at the guest room of the minister's 
house first. Mrs. Lok greeted us and led us to our 
seats. The minister soon joined us, and we sat 
around the room in silent formality. A strange 
company we were and on a stranger errand. In the 
center of the room was a small marble-topped table. 



240 MY CHINESE DAYS 

On opposite sides were two stools. Wang S Moo 
and Mrs. Lok talked in subdued voices. Mr. Lok 
was to be the spokesman ; we were simply to lend 
our presence. The husband, accompanied by a 
friend, arrived very promptly. The man looked 
around furtively as if still fearing some hidden 
treachery, Mr. Ix)k motioned him to one of the 
stools at the center table, and he took the other. 
Then began the exhortation. It was a scene I shall 
never forget. Like silent images, we sat around the 
walls of the small room, our eyes and ears focussed 
on the arena, on the figure of the minister and the 
thief. Very graciously and suavely Mr. Lok began 
his exhortation. My ears followed his words with 
feverish attention. Like the muffled roar of a far- 
off waterfall, the tones of his words rose and fell. 
Graphic, subtle, conciliating, the man pleaded that 
the thief husband allow his wife to come back to the 
hospital. Did he not know all in the hospital were 
the friends of A-doo ? Had she not worked with us 
for ten years, years during which time he himself 
was unable to care for her? Was not the foreign 
house like an adopted home to her? Were not the 
foreigners like adopted parents to her? We would 
cherish her and restore her to health. If, when she 
was well again, he wanted her, then that would be an 
affair for them to settle together, but now, while she 
was sick and in danger of losing her mind, now was 
the time to confide her to the care of the foreigners. 
On and on he went. It seemed impossible to me that 
any one could withstand such an appeal. But the 
husband did. 



THE SEEKING HAND 241 

It was true, he said, the foreigners were good 
to his wife, but it was also true that she had con- 
tracted this mortal sickness while working like a 
servant in their hospital. He did not find it fitting 
for his wife to work as a servant. He had heard the 
nurses were forced to do the work of amahs. No, 
it was not fitting for his wife. Moreover the new 
doctor was fierce and had spoken very fiercely to him. 
How did he know she would be good to his wife ? 

I was hot with rage and disappointment and 
chagrin. I also accused myself of my former dom- 
ineering manner. If I had only been soft-spoken ! 
Now he had me at his mercy. But Mr. Lok made 
light of his argument. He painted my character 
as a dove of peace, fierce only in the defense of 
her children. On flowed his words, but now I had 
ceased to listen. Instead I watched the face of the 
thief. If he should not yield, I determined to see if 
a prison might not again be found for him. I knew 
there were crimes enough to commit him, for Wang 
S Moo had just been telling me of the disappearance 
of silver, piece by piece, in the house where he was 
at service. I hated him ; a personal spite filled me 
with a startling, strong emotion. He was vile, and 
he was balking me. 

Our words were wasted like water thrown against 
a wall. Mr. Lok and the thief, polite to the end, 
talked on. The man had no idea of yielding, and I 
wondered why he had come. I wondered if we 
should have offered him money. Of course we could 
not have done it, but still I wondered. Finally I got 
up and left. I could not sit there and watch him 



242 MY CHINESE DAYS 

any longer, smiling and smiling like a villain. Wang 
S Moo said he promised to write to his mother-in-law, 
telling her to urge A-doo to come back. "If she 
does not come," the husband said craftily, "it will 
be because she does not wish to. She is quite free. 
I would not force her to anything. Did she not go 
of her own free will ? I did not send for her, I did 
not urge her. If she wants to come back she will 
come, but I do not think she will come. 

He must have gone home satisfied with his re- 
venge. I cried myself to sleep and sent out a piteous 
telepathic message into the void air for Edward. 
I needed him in my work; I was thwarted by a 
Chinese thief ! I wanted some one ruthless and 
strong to come to my rescue, to thrust the man out 
of my way. I wondered, whether A-doo too was cry- 
ing ? But no, San Me said she sat and smiled at the 
clouds. 

A week went by, but no word came from A-doo, 
no word came from Edward. Doctor Donnellon 
was still away, but Miss Laurie was back. I could 
stand it no longer. I left the hospital in her care 
and set off up river with San Me for the home of 
A-doo. We started late in the day, so that we 
should arrive unobserved and unheralded in the 
dusk. The village was but twelve miles distant. 
The evangelist had lent us her house boat, in which 
she made her preaching trips, and her boatman. 
The man was a Christian and had long been a 
trusted servant of the mission. If we brought back 
a kidnapped woman with us on our return trip, he 
would make no demur. Such was my plan. We 



THE SEEKING HAND 243 

would arrive after dark, San Me would lead me to 
the home of A-doo, I would persuade one or both of 
them to come back with me, and we would creep 
back to the boat at once. It was a very simple plan, 
but my heart misgave me. 

San Me busied herself in the cabin of the little 
boat. The boatman swayed back and forth with 
his oar. Out from the tangle of houses we slipped, 
out past the silk filatures of Chapei, past the village 
of Zau Ka Doo, where the house boats were moored 
along the shore, and the willows trailed their 
branches in the brown water, past the compound of 
the mission school and college at Jessfield, where the 
foreign houses were half hidden among the tall palms 
and cryptomeria of the campus, past the ferry 
stones and the flat-bottomed ferry, out into fields. 
It was already twilight. A lantern dangled at our 
prow and our stern. The current swished around 
the curves of the shore and beat against the side of 
the boat in a gentle gurgle. Past us, like huge bats 
with outspread wings, brown-sailed junks floated 
down with the tide to Shanghai. A carriage with 
two occupants galloped along the shore. A man 
began to whistle merrily; the gay western tune 
mocked the silent stealing river. At the customs 
station, the custom boat was alight with lanterns, 
and sounds of laughter floated out over the water. 
Soon we were beyond the noises of gaiety. Gray- 
brown, misty, the fields stretched away on either side 
of us. We passed the abandoned shrine with its 
ancient Buddha which we had passed the day 
Edward proposed to me, passed it and went on 



244 MY CHINESE DAYS 

farther and farther Into the country. Through the 
mist of the fields, here and there, rose a hedge of 
bamboo and cypress Hke an Indian stockade, sur- 
rounding a group of clannish homes. A dog would 
bark suddenly and as suddenly fall silent. In about 
two hours, lights appeared along the edge of the creek. 

"The village of A-doo," said San Me. "We will 
go to the steps behind her house, where her mother 
washes the rice, and moor the boat. Alas, that the 
house of the mother-in-law is next door ! It will be 
necessary to be very quiet. If she is sitting out in 
front reviling, perhaps she will not hear us." 

Like phantoms we glided over the water and 
moored at the foot of the ancient stones. I waited 
while San Me went in to reconnoiter. With her 
shoes in her hand, she tiptoed up the stone steps 
and vanished through an open door. I stood on 
the lowest step and waited. No sound of voices 
filled the evening. The village seemed to have gone 
to sleep. We were later than I had calculated. A 
spice of danger tingled through me. We had come 
like thieves in the night. A bird called suddenly 
from a tree and I trembled. Then San Me came 
back, followed by the old mother, and we crouched 
on the boat and talked in whispers. 

She refused to slip away now. She said A-doo 
would not come in the dark. She said that if they 
slipped away now, in the dark, they would lose their 
home and could never come back again. She was 
afraid. Then she invited us to spend the night 
with her and make an open visit. She said it would 
give her face in the eyes of the village. 



THE SEEKING HAND 245 

"What shall we do ?" I asked San Me. 

"I think we should do as she says," said San Me. 
"If she and A-doo will not steal away with us now, 
at once, it is useless to try to take them. To do 
anything secretly, we must have their consent. So 
then, the next best thing is to stay, and make them 
an honorable visit." 

I consented. We walked boldly up the moss- 
grown stones, chatting pleasantly. In the living 
room, A-doo already lay in bed. I went over to her, 
but she did not know me at all. In fact, I do not 
think she even saw me. She lay on her back with 
her eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. I was 
shocked at the poverty of the place. It consisted 
of one earthen-floored room. At the back stood 
the charcoal cook stove. At each side of the room 
was a low bed. The mother brewed us a fresh cup 
of tea and set a bowl of rice before us. I said I was 
tired, and they spread me a fresh comfort on the 
opposite bed. I demurred, but San Me and the 
mother insisted. 

"We do not want to sleep," they said. "We can 
sleep any night. Tonight we will talk." 

I was tired, and in spite of shuddering as I lay 
down on the strange bed, I went right to sleep. 

A faint blue light filled the room, seeping in 
through the lattice work of the wooden doors in front 
and through various, unobserved chinks in the walls 
and floor. In its grayness, the hut looked poorer 
and meaner than by candlelight. San Me and the 
mother were gone. In the bed opposite I saw the 
inert figure of A-doo. While I lay there, half awake 



246 MY CHINESE DAYS 

and unmoving, a stealthy noise caught my ear. I 
wanted to turn my head to look, but by a strong 
effort of will, I lay still and closed my eyes, all but a 
crack between my eyelashes. Behind me, the soft 
stealthy sounds crept on. A board creaked. I saw 
a small stooping shadow on the opposite wall. The 
shadow vanished on the ceiling, and the figure of 
the mother-in-law appeared, standing at the bedside 
of A-doo. Quite motionless the figure stood there. 
I only saw its back. It bent, and I saw a thin hand 
shoot out and disappear under the bedclothes. The 
witch kneeled down on the boards and bent over 
A-doo, searching, searching. A-doo slept on. Did 
she sleep as I slept, with a crack of pale gray dawn 
between her eyelashes, or did she sleep a sodden, 
dreamless sleep that felt not the searching hand 
beneath her body. Five, ten minutes, the hand 
searched the bed of A-doo, softly, gently, insistently. 
Baffled, the figure arose and crept about the room, 
peering into every cranny, and feeling, feeling 
everywhere with her searching hand. Under the 
cold stove, on the dressing stand, in the drawers, 
in the dark nooks on the floor, at last the searching 
hand came to the curtains of my bed. Through the 
crack of my eyelashes I saw the sudden start of 
horror that spread over her face when she recognized 
me. As if frozen the mother-in-law stood with the 
curtains in her hand, looking at me. My eyes flew 
open, and I stared up at her. A sudden trembling 
shook her from head to foot. Her eyes fell away, 
and she ran out of the room. 
A moment later San Me and the mother of A-doo 



THE SEEKING HAND 247 

returned. Seeing me awake, they displayed the 
purchases they had made for breakfast. They were 
going to make me a feast and they had already 
invited the neighbors. The old mother hurried 
around as if burdened with no sorrow. A-doo 
seemed to waken from her stupor. She knew San 
Me and she knew me. A sudden look of acute com- 
prehension lit up her face. 

"Her soul has come back to feast with us," cried 
her mother. 

Still with that uncanny look of acuteness in her 
eyes, A-doo bent down and pulled off a slipper. 
She held it carefully in her hands and ripped the 
stitches of the sole. The leather peeled off, as the 
skin of an orange peels off. Underneath, in a long 
smooth roll, lay ten ten-dollar bills. She took out 
one and handed it to me. "Make it into small 
change for me," she said, " so that the villagers 
and my mother-in-law shall not suspect. Every 
morning when my mother goes to market, she 
comes creeping in with the searching hand, feel- 
ing, feeling everywhere for my wealth. But she 
does not find it. No, she does not find it. 
Though I am asleep, I know when she comes, 
and my soul laughs." 

A-doo sewed up the sole of the slipper again. The 
mother hid the change I gave her in a hole she dug 
in the ground under the wall just inside the kitchen. 
A-doo took a tiny, four-legged, wooden stool out 
into the sun and sat on it. I went out to talk 
to her, but already she had lapsed back into that 
slumberous state of stupor, Her eyes were on 



248 MY CHINESE DAYS 

the sailing white clouds, floating overhead like 
feathers against the blue, casting soft, gray-green, 
cloud shadows on the fields beneath. She was 
smiling to herself. One slipper, the slipper with 
the padded sole, kept time to a little tune she 
sang beneath her breath. 



XIX 
THE FLAMING WIND 

FOR three days we had been having a typhoon. 
The wind, dry and dustladen, beat against 
the houses and sifted clouds of white dust 
through the windows and cracks. On the bare 
floors of the hospital the white dust lay like a carpet 
patterned with footprints. Every two hours the 
amahs mopped the floors. In the house I had shut 
my study windows. Then the heat choked me, so 
I opened them again, and the insidious white dust 
veils drifted back. Three days of it, and our nerves 
were on edge. That hot persistent, dust-laden 
wind does the strangest things to the human body. 
It takes the most calm, phlegmatic, serene person 
and turns her into a taut, quivering, jumpy creature 
full of whims and fancies. Nothing in nature has 
quite the same power that the hot, fierce wind of the 
typhoon has. It is like the prelude to a tragedy. 
All the patients were worse. The nurses were 
tired and worn out. I was ready to scream from 
nervous excitement. 

In the afternoon, a call came from Pootung. A 
woman had fallen from a second-story balcony and 
had broken her leg. Her son and her husband 
came for me. 



250 MY CHINESE DAYS 

"You can't go to Pootung in this wind," said Miss 
Laurie. "It is dangerous to cross the river." 

"No dangerous," said the son. "There are little 
waves, but we have a big junk. My mother lies 
in the courtyard with her leg doubled up under her, 
moaning with pain." 

"I'll go," I said. " I don't mind a few whitecaps." 

In the morning and for the past three days the sun 
had been shining brilliantly, its glare even brighter 
than usual. But in the afternoon a thin diaphanous 
film of cloud was slowly being drawn up over the 
heavens. It crept up the sky like a crawling mist. 
Its edges were blown out in banners and streamers of 
white. So transparent was this cloud that the sun 
still shone brightly, except that its terrible blinding 
glare was somewhat mitigated. 

We set off in a little procession of three rickshas, I 
in the last. On the street swirls of dust were caught 
up from the roadside and eddied along in a mad, 
whirling dance. Our eyes were filled with it ; even 
my tongue tasted dry and bitter. In spite of hat- 
pins, I could not make my hat stay on my head, so I 
took it off and held it in my lap. The wind tore at 
my hairpins and scattered them in a little shower 
along the road. My skirts ballooned out about my 
feet. 

The road was almost empty. Some of the houses 
had put up their wooden night shutters as a pro- 
tection against the wind and dust. The occupants, 
sitting in the semi-dusk of the windowless interior, 
gathered around the open space where the last 
shutter had not yet been put up. In little groups 



THE FLAMING WIND 251 

they peered out on the street and whispered among 
themselves. Now and then a coolie darted out 
on an urgent errand, or a baby toddled out and 
was snatched back. The town was demoralized. 
Business had come to a standstill. The groups in the 
doorways gazed at me with curious eyes. "She 
fears not," I heard them mutter. 

They were right, I was not afraid. Unhappiness 
gives one a false courage. If Edward didn't come 
back and come back soon, I didn't care what became 
of me. Once and for all in the last two dragging 
months I had learned my lesson. I had not the 
vestige of a doubt left as to what I wanted. I knew 
that industry, work, were but pale fitful gleams 
against the burning warmth of motherhood and love. 
If only he would come back ! 

f Nanking Road was also deserted. The race 
track lay like a white mat beyond. I looked up at 
the Grand Hotel. Its balconies were shuttered, and 
its awnings drawn up and carefully tied, but I 
suddenly had the eerie sensation of being watched 
from behind one of the closed shutters. The slats 
were level and horizontal, and through the slits I 
saw the dim outline of a white form. I knew I was 
being watched. A wild hope made my heart knock 
against my ribs. I was always having such attacks 
of hope. Sometimes a figure that looked familiar 
in the distance sent my heart into my throat, but 
when I arrived at the spot where I had seen the 
figure, I found no one. The garter, tying the left 
trouser of my runner at his ankle, came undone. 
Like a black snake it coiled and reared itself around 



252 MY CHINESE DAYS 

his foot. He stopped and tilted down the shafts. 
As I slid forward, half standing, my eyes fastened 
upon that shutter. I met a pair of eyes. Suddenly 
I raised my hand and beckoned to that hidden 
watcher. The coolie, fatally deft and quick, tied 
his ankle-strap and rushed off at double quick after 
my two guides. I turned to look back, but the 
shutter was still closed. 

The usual crowd of rickshas and wheelbarrows 
was gone, as we sped down the smooth, asphalted 
street at a marathon speed. At the jetty a little 
tilting rowboat was waiting for us. Its yellow eyes 
were bulging on each side of the prow, and the stern 
tilted up in the air like the poop of an ancient 
galley. 

"I thought you had a big junk for me," I said, 
hesitating. 

"This is a big junk," they said. 

I got in. Perhaps it was just as well that we had 
no sail. I saw one house boat with a tall brown sail 
go tearing past like a runaway boat, the men on her 
sitting on the gunwale, grinning. They seemed to 
like it. Along the shore a host of craft were moored 
— rafts, junks, house boats, steam launches, and 
foreign white-painted, white-sailed cat-boats. The 
plane trees on the bund and in the garden made a 
noise like violin strings, as their leaves whipped 
back and forth and up and down in the wind. On 
the water the waves leaped up in white spray, 
hiding the brown stream. Our futile cockleshell 
danced up and down. Half the time the oar was 
out of water. 



THE FLAMING WIND 253 

"Can you swim?" I asked the son. 

"No." he said. "Why should I swim?" 

"For your life," I thought. I could swim, but 
in spite of that comforting fact I seemed more per- 
turbed than the Chinese. Little by little we got 
across, not so much by rowing in a steady direction, 
as by a series of hops and jumps. The Pootung 
shore was crowded with house boats. A regular 
fleet of junks clustered along the shore. The tobacco 
factories, the great silk mills, and the godowns of 
tallow and opium rose in a black shapeless bulk 
along the water front. They were a modern barrier 
to the ancient pastoral life beyond, life that persisted 
unchanged from the days of Abraham till now, life 
that would persist forever and ever. The streets 
were dark and empty, but from the whirring of a 
million spindles I knew that this subtle, upsetting 
wind had not stopped the wheels of modern industry. 

The thin, diaphanous veil of white cloud had spread 
over the entire sky. Layer after layer of filmy 
mist had deepened its white to a soft gray, through 
which the sun barely filtered like pale moonlight. 
Twilight had fallen early in the afternoon. I felt 
that the mills ought to close, that they were working 
on into the night, in defiance of the menacing change 
in nature. Inhuman, regardless of the signs in the 
heavens, they held captive their throngs of women 
and children. I looked in quickly through the 
windows and saw the revolving spindles and the 
workers moving mysteriously among the machinery. 

The town was but a thin wall along the river 
front, and we were soon out in the fields. A short 



254 MY CHINESE DAYS 

ride brought us to a neat house of plaster and 
thatch, standing in a grove of young bamboo. 
They bent over, touching their frond-like tips in a 
deep kowtow to the ground. Out here, on the edge 
of the plains, the wind met us with augmented 
force, sweeping up from out an inferno of torrid 
heat. My skin was parched and dry. I wiped my 
face off with my handkerchief. The linen was 
covered with a fine dry gritty sand. Around the 
house the chickens and dogs had found shelter within 
the courtyard. 

The old mother was in a pitiable condition. While 
the men were gone, her daughter and her daughter- 
in-law had managed to get her to bed. They had 
slipped a shutter under her, and so had lifted her 
from the ground and carried her up to her room, 
Her leg was horribly twisted. She had been lean- 
ing on the railing of the second-story balcony when 
it had suddenly given away and she had fallen head- 
long on to the flagging of the courtyard. 

"The sleeping medicine," she moaned. 

I gave her some whiffs of chloroform and set her 
leg. I also attended to five or six bruises upon her 
body. It took me in all about an hour, and in 
that time darkness had descended over the land. 
In the blackness without, neither sun nor moon 
nor stars were visible. In the house they lit 
a few candles which were continually going out 
in a sudden draft. 

I went to the door and stood a moment before 
starting back, looking out over the fields and listen- 
ing to the roar of the wind. As I stood tilted for- 



THE FLAMING WIND 255 

ward, leaning against it, it was like a tangible 
support. 

Finally stooping in the face of the wind, I set 
forth. The father and son accompanied me. When 
a great gust came whirling down the narrow alley, 
they steadied me by my elbows. The whirring of 
the machinery in the mills told me it was not yet 
six o'clock, yet it seemed like midnight. People 
ran here and there, in a sudden feverish activity, 
doing their last errands for the night. At the boat, 
the father and son left me, and the oarsman pushed 
off. That crossing was as the crossing of the river 
Styx. I could not see the water; I only felt its 
turbulent tossing, as hither and thither we danced. 
The spray wet my face. The wind redoubled its 
fury, and my hair streamed out behind, giving me 
the strangest sense of adding to the motion and the 
blackness. We seemed to make no headway at all. 
I could just distinguish the figure of the oarsman 
flinging his weight on the rope of the oar at each 
stroke. At each recoil he sang a low musical note. 
The river was alive with a hidden flotilla of boats. 
Now on one side, now on the other, came the call 
of the rowers. 

Suddenly the Stygian blackness was rent with 
flame. A godown at the very edge of the water 
spouted fountains of yellow light. The wind caught 
the flames and wove them in and out in a fantastic 
pattern. Like rockets and meteors of red and gold, 
the flames melted into the blackness of the tempest. 
The shore was alive with shouting. We heard a 
great splintering of wood, and, suddenly, streams of 



2S6 MY CHINESE DAYS 

liquid fire ran out on the water and spread over it. 
From the burning streams great mountains of fire 
towered into the air. 

"The tallow factory is burning," said the rower. 
"See how the fire dragons live on the water." 

Fascinated, forgetful of any personal danger, the 
rower stopped working, and we drifted. From 
the godown on the shore great fiery waterfalls of 
yellow and red, of purple and green flame, poured 
out upon the water. This molten mass of burning 
tallow rushed out on the water as a mass of lava, 
turning the blackness of. the water into a river of 
fire. Pieces were torn loose from the mass by the 
typhoon and hurried away in burning islands. The 
whole river was aflame ! In this flaring light, 
Shanghai was illumined in a silhouette blackness. 
The wind tore off molten pieces of tallow and carried 
them in flaming balls of fire high into the air. On 
the shore the sound of people screaming filled the 
night. Other buildings sprang into flame. Black- 
ness and flame, the screaming wind, the tossing 
water ! 

I was afraid. It was like the end of the world ; it 
was hell let loose upon the earth. 

A sudden tongue of flame wriggled our way on the 
water. The Chinaman began to row frantically. 
Near us, we saw a junk caught and encircled with 
the burning tallow. The wood of the junk caught 
on fire, and the flames rushed up the sails. Frenzied 
shrieks rent the air. The boat and the burning 
tallow bore down upon us, and I expected to be 
engulfed in a moment in the ever-burning, relentless 



THE FLAMING WIND 257 

river of fire. Then the wind veered. The tower of 
flames drifted past us, and we were safe for the 
moment. The whole river, from shore to shore, was 
a mass of leaping, spreading flames, through which 
the black water showed like little pathways. I 
watched the wind catch up a flame and twist it and 
toss it into aerial, fairy shapes of wonder and glory. 
On the shore the fire swept along in unchecked 
triumph. 

By some miracle we reached the other shore in 
safety. On the steps of the jetty stood Edward. He 
picked me up in his arms and whispered things in 
my ears that I shall never forget. 



XX 

THE RIVER OF SILENCE 

IT was the day after the Great Typhoon, at least 
so the world of Shanghai counted. For me 
it was the day after Edward came back. All 
my doubts, all my fears were swept away when he 
gathered me into his arms, and a great peace en- 
veloped my soul. In the night the wind had in- 
creased a hundredfold. We were all sleeping in 
our row of cots on the second-story porch, when 
suddenly my covers were whisked off me. I sat 
up in bed just in time to see them disappear into 
the darkness like the sudden spreading of a ghost's 
wings. The bamboo blinds began to flap wildly. 
At the end of the porch, one tore loose from its 
moorings and beat against the ceiling and the floor 
in a wild tattoo. 

The rain came down in torrents. It swept in 
under the high roof of the porch and drenched the 
bed and our clothes and our hair. The night was 
pitch black. Something had happened to the elec- 
tric lights, so that the house was in darkness. Some 
one lit a candle, but the wind blew it out with 
a derisive puff. In the darkness, with the rain 
soaking through our nightgowns till we were as 
wet as if we had been in bathing, we struggled with 



THE RIVER OP SILENCE *59 

the bedding on the cots, dragging in sheets and 
blankets and mattresses. My hair was loose and 
lying like a wet shawl on my shoulders. The chairs 
and the table blew over with a loud reverberation. 
The loosened blind flapped distractingly. The whole 
house groaned and shook with the might of the 
wind. Wet and shivering, like rescued swimmers, 
we stood in fearful groups at the windows, fascinated 
by the endless rush and whistle of the hurricane. 
Two more blinds tore loose. One was carried oflf 
bodily into the darkness, the other was torn in bits, 
and pieces of shredded bamboo like the scattered 
fragments of a shredded wheat biscuit were whirled 
hither and thither into the night. The sound of 
the flapping curtain distracted me. I put on a rain 
coat, tied up my hair, opened the door on to the 
porch, and went out. 

"Be careful," called Miss Laurie. 

She was too late. 

The bamboo shade, in its swoop from ceiling to 
floor, hit me on the head and knocked me to the 
floor, half dazed. In one gust the rain had soaked 
me to the skin. My coat was torn off me, and sailed 
away into the raging space. The released blind 
tore to and fro over my head, hitting the ceiling 
with a terrific bang and swinging down to the floor, 
just grazing my head. Half of its length was gone. 
Momently it disintegrated. The outlines of the 
Chinese houses close behind were lost. The black- 
ness was as impenetrable and formless as if I had 
been on the deck of the solitary surviving ship on 
the ocean. I struggled to my knees. Like a living 



26o MY CHINESE DAYS 

creature, filled with venom, and destruction, the 
wind bore me to the floor again. Crash ! Crash ! 
The night reverberated with sound. With a brisk 
cannonade, the Chinese tiled roofs fell in. On my 
hands and knees I crawled back to the French 
window. Miss Laurie opened it a crack and pulled 
me in. In that moment the wind also tore in and 
blew over the chairs and tables. The glass splin- 
tered into fragments and the wind rushed through 
the house. We managed to shut the wooden shut- 
ters. The servants came creeping in from the back 
quarters, frightened to death. 

That night passed like an eternity. The others 
went to bed. I sat crouching at my one remaining 
window, not that I could see anything at all, but 
because I was fascinated by the force of the storm. 
I sat on a cushion on the floor and pressed my face 
against the windowpane. Again and again came the 
crash of falling roofs. Once, a piercing scream shot 
up into the night. It came right after the thunder 
of a falling roof, and a sudden shiver ran down my 
spine. Some one was hurt. The noise of wind 
was like a mighty trumpet, as it screamed and 
shrieked and bellowed through the black darkness 
of the night. It drowned the sound of the rain, 
which fell in torrents as from a waterspout. At 
last the darkness was tinged with a desolate gray. 
I saw the pillars of the porch rise into view before 
my eyes, and across the garden, the dim peaked 
roofs of the Chinese houses appeared like outlines 
in the clouds. The rain was driven over the earth 
in spouts of water, and the wind never ceased its 



THE RIVER OF SILENCE 261 

howling and rushing. I had a sudden vision of the 
power lying hidden in the veriest white fluff of cloud, 
power against which houses and bricks and mortar 
were as thistledown. I had a quick, mad desire 
to rush out and stand on the railing of the porch 
and spread my arms to the wind like wings and be 
carried off. In the gray darkness of the dawn I 
would be carried off, over the roofs of the city, out 
over the pathless plains, over the plains, over the 
rivers, up and up, to the hills ! So swept the wind ! 
Up from the hot south of Formosa, over the China 
Sea, bursting in rushing sound and falling water 
on the banks of the Yangtse ! I felt part of it. I no 
longer wanted to be housed and protected. I wanted 
to cast loose from the cramping safety and merge 
myself with the typhoon. 

Morning came with utter desolation. Every tree 
on the compound was uprooted and lay at full 
length on the grass. The third-story tuberculosis 
ward was a wreck. The Venetian blinds were 
wrenched from the window frames, tearing off long 
strips of wood. The tables and chairs were splin- 
tered. The patients had crept down in the night, 
dragging their mattresses after them, and slept on 
the floor in the ward below. There the ceiling had 
leaked, and great pools of muddy water covered 
the floor of the second-story ward. Out-patients, 
with heads cut by falling bricks, crowded to the 
clinic. 

Edward came with news of the devastation in 
the settlement. Along the bund all the hundred- 
year planes were uprooted, carrying great slabs of 



262 MY CHINESE DAYS 

cement into the air. The entire house-boat popu- 
lation had been swept out of existence. The Whang- 
poo, the Soochow Creek, and all the little tributary 
canals were empty and bare of craft. Wires were 
down, and the settlement was without light and 
telephone. 

The air was full of tingling life. The clouds were 
gathered up and folded away like the folds of a 
closed camera. The sun shone forth with a dazzling 
brightness. Every one laughed and sang. The 
coolies and amahs were busy clearing up the debris 
of the night. The usual routine of the hospital 
was demoralized. The regular clinic patients stayed 
at home, and by afternoon all the cut heads seemed 
to be bound up. 

"Come, let's go for a walk," said Edward. 

Off we went, through the settlement, out along 
the Jessfield Road. 

We came to the house of the Wistaria Tower. 
It is a great, red-brick house standing in spacious 
grounds with a thick hedge of shrubbery along the 
outer wall. At one corner, a three-story, square, 
red-brick tower overlooks the road. Ancient wis- 
taria vines, both white and purple, climb to the top 
of the tower. In the early spring the fragrance of 
the blossoms floats out over the land in an enticing 
smell. The fullest blossoms grow about the tower. 

"Do you know the story of that house?" I asked 
Edward. 

"No," he said. "Has it got a story? Never 
mind. I don't want to hear any story but how you 
managed to get along without me for so long." 



THE RIVER OF SILENCE 263 

"I didn't manage," I said. "You went away and 
left me, and I pined, but I am not going to talk 
about that ; I am going to tell you the story of the 
Wistaria Tower. The other can't be told in the 
daylight, walking along the public road." 

"Go ahead, then," said Edward. 

"Well," I began, "once upon a time, long ago 
when Shanghai was a strange and dangerous place 
to live in, a young couple came out from England. 
The husband was in the tea business. They pros- 
pered greatly and, as his bride was fond of the 
country, he bought this house on Bubbling Well 
Road. Fifty years ago it was out in the wilds of 
the country. At first the husband and wife were 
very happy. Together they planted the white 
and purple wistaria and the daphne bushes and the 
bamboo grove. They had a little baby, and I think 
they were as happy as people ever are on this earth. 
Perhaps they were too happy or too forgetful. The 
husband became richer and richer. He grew fas- 
cinated with piling up money and more money. 
At night, when he came home from the hong, he 
sat silent at the head of the table, his head full of 
plans of how he could get more and more money. 
He didn't play with the baby any more. When, 
on Sunday afternoons, he and his wife rode out in 
their green victoria, he sat silent and preoccupied 
beside her. 

"At first his wife was very sad. By and by she 
forgot about the time that he had loved her and that 
she had loved him. She fancied he had always 
been this absentminded person who only cared 



264 MY CHINESE DAYS 

about silver taels. But she was happy neverthe- 
less, for she had her baby. Then one summer the 
baby died. For a week the husband forgot about 
his money and was tender to his wife, but he soon 
forgot all about her again. Day by day, she used 
to sit in her room and pretend the baby was just 
out for a walk with his amah and would come bound- 
ing in to her in a few moments. Her friends and 
her servants whispered among each other, saying 
she would go mad from grief. One of them spoke 
to her husband, and he sent for a doctor. Now 
this doctor was a young man, just out from England. 
He felt sorry for the wife and, by and by, he and the 
wife became good friends. There was no wicked- 
ness or sinfulness in their friendship. It merely 
brought warmth and happiness to their two empty 
hearts. 

"One night, at dinner, the wife noticed that her 
husband eyed her strangely. After that he would 
come home at unexpected moments, or suddenly 
appear in the shrubbery if he heard the voices of 
his wife and the doctor talking. At first the wife 
rejoiced, because she thought her husband wanted 
to be friends again. But it was not so; he was 
devoured by a fiendish jealousy. 

"Little by little it killed him. He left the 
strangest will. His wife was to be allowed only 
the income from his estate until she took his body 
home and buried it in a certain cemetery in England. 
When that had been done, she was to be given the 
principal. This principal was a huge sum of thou- 
sands and thousands of pounds. By this devise, 



THE RIVER OF SILENCE 265 

the husband had thought to separate her from the 
doctor. If she married again, she was to forfeit 
the entire fortune. After the will was read, the 
woman and the doctor met In the garden under the 
wistaria vines. It was springtime, and above them 
the flowers hung in purple and snowy cascades of 
fragrance. 

" Don't leave me," said the doctor. 

"'I must,' said the wife. *I must go home with 
my husband's body, across the sea, to bury it in the 
old graveyard.' 

"'Don't go,' he begged. 

"'But I must,* she answered. 'If the body 
crumbles, I am penniless, and I do not wish to be 
penniless. I don't want to work.' 

"'What do you want to do?'" he asked. 

"'I want to do just what we have been doing in 
these last two years. I want to stay right here, 
where I used to be happy, where my baby used to 
play. I want to smell the wistaria spring after 
spring and have you come to see me.' 

"A sudden light sprang up in the eyes of the 
doctor. 

" ' You shall do just exactly what you want,' he said. 

"So he sent for skilled embalmers. For days 
and days they were shut in the room with the corpse. 
He went to see the lawyers and asked their opinion. 
'As long as his body remains above ground she will 
have the use of the income,* they said. 

"They sent for a mason, and the high tower was 
built. There, in the topmost room, they placed 
the body in all pomp and state. It lies on a great 



266 MY CHINESE DAYS 

marble bier draped with sumptuous silks. Strange 
spices fill the atmosphere. Once a week, every 
Friday, the mistress of the house says to the boy. 
'Bring your feather duster. It is time to dust off 
Master.' Up they go, by the winding stairs, to 
the tower room, and open the closed doors. They 
open the windows on to the sweet smelling air, 
heavy with the fragrance of the wistaria, and the 
Chinese boy dusts off the light film of white dust 
that sifts in through the windows and lies on the 
face of Master. Then the mistress takes out fresh 
spices from a bag on her wrist and sprinkles them 
about the room of death. 

"All that was fifty years ago, and she is an old 
woman now. She says she will never go back to 
England. She has again grown fond of her husband, 
of the face that smiles at her with its eternal calm 
from its sumptuous bed of silks and spices. Once 
a week she performs her ceremonial rite ; she and 
the half-frightened boy climb the winding stairs to 
the highest room and dust off Master. But I 
wonder how often she secretly climbs up the stairs, 
perhaps in the dead of night, when the moon shines 
in pale patches of silver, or at sunset, when the rosy 
reflection of the sky tinges the white face of her 
husband with the glow of life, or at the clear cool 
time of dawning, when the crows fly back to the 
fields for the day. I can fancy her standing beside 
that royal bier, thinking thoughts that are sad and 
corroding, or quiet and serene. Whenever I pass the 
house, I wonder about her. Has her life been only 
one long contemplation of the dead ?" 



THE RIVER OF SILENCE 267 

"What a dreadful story," said Edward. "I'll 
never be able to pass that house without thinking 
of her. Don't tell me any more such spooky tales." 

The sun covered the fields like a golden carpet. 
The sky was a fleckless blue. In the tiny village 
of Zau Ka Doo women and babies were already 
sitting along the roadside, chatting. The shops 
were busy. Long strings of peppers and leeks hung 
from the ceilings. The destruction of the night 
before was almost cleared away. The shore of 
the creek was strewn with floating masts and up- 
turned boats, but the children were fast gathering 
the wreckage for firewood. At Jessfield we wandered 
across the campus. The gardeners were busy at 
work with ropes and pulleys, hoisting the upturned 
trees back into place. The force of the wind had 
evidently not struck Jessfield with the violence 
with which it had hit the settlement. 

Along the shore of the creek a group of children 
were throwing stones at a log in the water. They 
were all little American children, the girls in the 
dainty frills and lacy whiteness of clean afternoon 
dresses, the boys in stiff sailor suits. 

"I've hit it twice," shouted Henry. 

"I hit it too," said Mary. "I can hit just as 
well as you." 

"Shucks! You just happened to hit it! Girls 
can't throw. Watch me hit it again." 

Henry carefully searched for a smooth round 
stone, poised himself on one foot, and sent the little, 
twirling thing through the air. Plump, it landed 
on the log with a forceful impact. The sudden 



268 MY CHINESE DAYS. 

thud made the inert brown log roll over. A sicken- 
ing horror gripped us. Something white and life- 
like stared up at us from the water. A swirl of the 
current caught the object. It flung an arm out on 
the water, and quite distinctly I saw a hand appear 
and vanish before the current rolled it back again. 
Once more it lay floating like a log, drifting up a 
little way and down a little way with the lazy current. 
I looked at Edward and saw the same knowledge 
in his eyes. I sent the children off home, for I did 
not want them to see the ghastly, drowned face turn 
again to the light. We walked along the shore to 
the ancient ferry above and got the ferryman to 
pole us downstream to the drowned man. Very 
slowly he was drifting down towards the ocean. 
The ferryman was scared and refused to touch the 
body. When we found ourselves alongside it, it 
was floating on its face, with arms and legs sinking 
downwards, leaving its khaki-clad body like a log 
on the surface. We drew it to the shore. 

"A rebel soldier!" cried the ferryman in fear. 
"Do not touch him. Put him back again into the 
water. It is not good to touch the drowned dead." 

"We'll bury the corpse," said Edward. "We 
can't let him go floating up and down the stream, 
to frighten the children out of their wits." 

The dead rebel soldier lay on the grass with his 
white, shrunken face upturned to the sunset skies. 
Overhead the crows flew by, one by one, in twos and 
threes, back to their roosts in the shelter of the settle- 
ment for the night. The wide, level plains stretched 
off in the distance to the faint irregular rim of the 



THE RIVER OF SILENCE 269 

horizon. Grave mounds, little and big, forgotten 
and nameless, humped the fields. The meandering 
runs of water and the meandering footpaths went 
off towards infinity. From the road came the sound 
of the carry coolies. I could see them jogging along 
at their never-ending, tireless gait, singing again 
and forever the same song. A boatman went by, 
swaying slowly at his oar, calling out a low note at 
each stroke. He looked at us with curious eyes. 
Through the fields I saw a wheelbarrow, laden with 
a dozen women, go along one of the winding paths. 

"I wonder where he came from," I said. 

The ferryman had left us to ply his busy evening 
trade to and fro across the stream, carrying the 
workers back from the twentieth century into the 
days of yore, back from the silk filature to the 
rice fields and their earthen-floored huts of woven 
bamboo. 

Edward stooped over the man, and ran his hand 
over his chest. "Ah! he was murdered," he said. 
"See, here is a great gash just over his heart. He 
was murdered and then thrown into the stream. 
Think how simple it would be, in one of those canal 
houses of Soochow." 

"But why?" I asked. 

"Why? Who can say?" said Edward. His 
hands were searching the body and the clothes. 
Suddenly he brought out a shining something and 
held it out to the light on the open palm of his hand. 
The setting sun caught the object and made it 
gleam like an emerald. I bent over it. 

"Take it," said Edward. 



2 70 MY CHINESE DAYS 

I picked it up and held it in my hand. It was a 
wonderful jade ring. The stone was oval, of a deep 
spinach color and translucent. A light of its own 
burned within. The characters "Long Life and 
Happiness" were carved on each side of the stone. 
Like the imprisoned wonder arid magic and hope 
of the greenness of spring, it lay in my hand and 
gathered to itself all the lingering light in the sky. 

"He was an up-country man," said Edward. 
"Probably from Nanking. Can't you just see him 
looting, cutting off the women's earrings, and 
grabbing their bracelets and rings? In the three 
days' loot of Nanking, he revelled. All the hard and 
fast restraints of civilized life were cast to the winds. 
He could enter where he chose ; he could take what 
he chose ; he could do what he chose. Here is an- 
other gash on his forehead, under his shock of hair. 
He fought like a demon, and laughed when the women 
jumped down the wells at his approach. He stuffed 
his pockets full of loot and drank and was riotously 
happy. Then the tide turned ; the rebels were 
ousted. Fearful of losing his loot, or of being caught 
with it on his body, he slunk away from the army 
and set out for home. Somehow he reached Soochow. 
There he entered a wine shop. The wine was hot 
and strong. The men around him ate and joked. 
He began his fatal boasting. He pulled earrings 
and bracelets from his belt pocket and spread them 
before the greedy eyes of the coolies. Soon they 
were fighting, swaying around and around the eating 
tables in a hilarious drunken mob. The rebel 
soldier was pinned against the wall. Behind him, 



THE RIVER OF SILENCE 271 

a window yawned over the canal. A long, gleam- 
ing dagger reached out and lunged itself into his 
heart. The sudden warm gush of blood staggered 
his enemies. They drew back with terror staring 
in their eyes. In a panic they ebbed away from their 
victim. Steadied by the wall behind him, undis- 
torted with pain, and strangely aloof , as are those that 
die from hemorrhage, the rebel stared at the crouch- 
ing, cowed mob. I can fancy him making one. last 
defiant gesture, waving the marvelous ring in their 
faces, before plunging backward into the slow, 
silent, sluggish creek. The men, too frightened to 
follow him, slunk away one by one to their homes. 
Through the winding black canals, in the cold black 
night, the body floated till morning saw it out in 
the open fields. Unconcerned, it floated down- 
stream, drifting with the eddying current, past the 
lighted house boats, past the brown-sailed junks, 
past the staring, stone Buddhas, past the low stone 
steps where the women washed their morning rice, 
floating like a log, as dead men float out to sea. 
Only the children, shying their smooth, round stones, 
stopped its seaward destiny. Through such wild 
bloody scenes, from such a high-born home the 
magic ring has come to you." 

Edward stood up and put the ring on my fourth 
finger. I slipped my hand within my waist and drew 
out the pendant of jade that the Mandarin's Bride 
had given me, and I remembered the words: " There 
is no adventure without love. Love is the great 
Adventure." 



